The Ban on Group Examinations
in Danish Higher Education
Lone Krogh & Palle Rasmussen
Department of Education,
Learning and Philosophy
Aalborg University
The Ban
Government has decided to abolish group examinations. This
is done to secure for all students the right to take individual
examinations. (…) “We do this because we want to know what
skills the individual has. And that is best measured by
examining individually”, says Minister of Education Bertel
Haarder. “If the students do group work it is not our business;
but the individual as well as a future employer can reasonably
expect to know what skills the individual really possesses. For
this reason we now make sure that the individual student
always gets assessed individually when he/she takes exams”,
says Minister of Science Helge Sander.
Press Release, 29 November 2005
Implementation



Examination must be individual. Students are to be
alone with examiners in the room.
Students are allowed to work, do reports and
prepare examinations in groups. However, if reports
are to count in the results students must sign their
individual sections.
Group examinations are allowed in some situations
were group work in integral to the task; for instance
in some artistic disciplines. This covers very few of
the study programmes where group examinations
were used earlier.
Educational background: Project
study and group examinations







Danish progressive universities of the seventies:
Roskilde and Aalborg
Problem-based, project-organised cooperative
learning
Used in all disciplines
Project reports basis for oral examinations
Project study mostly done in groups, but group work
is voluntary
Group examination, individual assessment
Cooperative study in other parts of the education
system.
Educational consequences
Students’ experience of group and individual exams at Aalborg University

Compared to students taking group exams, students taking individual
exams find to a much lesser degree that their academic skills were
questioned and examined

Examiners find that individual exams give much reduced possibilities
for asking questions related to deeper academic understanding, and
they find that the basis for assessing individual performance is better
in group exams.

Both students and examiners find that a number of skills are less
likely to be assessed in individual exams than in group exams. These
include arguing for choices of theories and methods, discussing
different solutions to problems, transferring knowledge from the study
project to other contexts, engaging in dialogue and teamwork.
Source: Kolmos and Holdgaard 2007
Political background






Denmark: Small, fairly homogeneous and
democratic welfare state
Post-war society mainly shaped by governments
led by Social Democrats
Since 1980 two long periods of LiberalConservative coalitions governments
Present liberal-conservative government supported
by the radical right (“Danish People’s Party)
Continued commitment to generous welfare
provision
Neo-liberal reforms in many areas, not least
education
The political spectrum
Political ideology Core value
Mode of control
Liberal
Freedom
Market
Conservative
Tradition
Authority
Social
democratic:
Distribution
Social
democratic:
Culture
Equality
Corporatist
Community,
equity
Democracy ”from
below”
Political reaction and debate
Strong objections to the ban from:

Educational institutions (because it limits their scope for deciding
appropriate forms of study)

Student’s organisations (because it limit students’ freedom of choice)

Business organisations (because it discourages teamwork and limits
employers’ freedom of choice)
Debated in parliament:

Opposition parties proposed a bill prohibiting government from
banning group examinations

After heated debates the bill was rejected by a narrow margin

Possibility of partly allowing group examinations not raised

No trans-national aspects raised
Political reaction and debate 2
Quotes from debate in parliament, 18 January 2008:


Minister of Education, mr. Haarder: I happen to have been around in
the landscape and I have asked external examiners and new
graduates: What happened when you participated or examined in the
group examinations? I may have met some very special persons, but
till now I have met not one who has participated in a group exam
where individual grades were given. All have experienced that the
same grades were given (…) Unfortunately the freedom to have
group examinations have been misused to give all group members
the same grad, which makes the diploma insignificant. That is what
has led to government intervention.
Mr. Rasmussen, Speaker for Conservatives: We Conservatives find it
important that the individual has the opportunity to express him- og
herself individually in the examination situation, for example in order
to prepare the individual for a possible job interview after graduation
(…) Companies often look for persons who can participate in a team
and here both the invididual and the workplace are better off if the
person can demonstrate his or her individual skills.
Possible explanations 1:
Modern individualism?
Individualisation in contemporary societies:
 Collective actors are gradually dissolving
 Life trajectories become more individual,
 Formal qualifications gain importance
Government intervention as response to
 Decreasing legitimacy of collective forms
 Increasing demands on individual certification of
educational qualifications
But: Why such a specific and persistent intervention?
Possible explanations 2:
Political backlash?





Institutions with project study and group examinations
(especially universities in Roskilde and Aalborg) strongly
associated with “68” and student movements
Contemporary neo-liberal and conservative ideology positions
itself in strong opposition to these phenomena
Parallel example: Democratic governance in universities and
conservative struggle against it
Government intervention as a symbolic gift to embittered
traditional liberals and conservatives (including the Minister of
Education)
But why are these aspects not more visible in the discourse?
And do such things really have a place in modern politics?