University of Brighton
Brighton Business School
Module Title
Module Code
Courses/ Years Taught
Module Leader
Other members of the teaching team
Semester (or weeks taught if block mode)
Academic Year
Legal Research Project
CA363
LLB final year
Lin Povey up to Dec 14/Marie Dembour from
Jan 15
From Jan 14: Anil Yilmas and Jo Wilding
Year-long
2014-15
Introduction
This module requires the students to work in groups of four, which they do not particularly
like. Students can choose the membership of their group in the first fortnight of the autumn
term.
Only one group was not self-selected; it was made of the four remaining students who had
not self-selected. This group (originally group 14) was broken into two pairs in early March,
due to one pair saying the other pair was not doing any work. Another group (originally group
8, made of two fourth-year students returning from a year-long placement and two third-year
finalists) was also broken into two pairs, due also to one pair complaining that the other pair
was not pulling their weight. One new group of four was reconstituted (group 14), whilst the
other two pairs were allowed to continue to work in groups of two. One student was allowed
to work alone, due to serious health problems. He became group 16, while their group
continued the work with three members.
The students engaged well with the problem that was set, which required them to advise a
fictional firm providing accommodation to asylum-seekers on a number of human rights
issues. It is nice to see how their presentation skills have flourished over the course of their
studies as evidenced by the high marks given to the group presentation part of the
assessment.
Statistical data including passes and referrals
Students continually express worries about this module, as they fear that working in a group
will pull their overall degree down.
Actually the great majority of students got an overall mark for this module which was higher
than what they obtained for the individually assessed component of this module (made by
the literature review). This seems to indicate that, far from what they fear, with circumscribed
exceptions, they benefit from working in groups rather than being disadvantaged by this
setting.
Admittedly a quarter of students (16) achieved a lower overall mark for this module than
what they received for their individual literature review. However, only in 6 cases did this
involve a change of band. Moreover, these 6 cases included the four students who ended up
working in pairs after the module leader acted upon the complaints by the other students in
their original group that they were not pulling their weight. As for the ten students whose
overall mark was lower than their literature review but still in the same band, the difference
between these two marks was 5 points (3 students), 4 points (3 students), 3 points (one
student) and 2 points (3 students).
One student got 35 for her literature review but ended up with a mark of 55 overall.
The final mark array was distributed as follows: nineteen (19) first class marks, twenty-four
(24) II.1, six (6) II.2, and three (3) thirds. For an array of various reasons, four marks cannot
be taken into account at the time of writing this report.
Attendance:
The students were required to attend two general lectures in the autumn term and to attend
three meetings with their assigned tutor at specific points during the year. Some groups
needed to be invited to this over and over again. Two students (who eventually were
constituted as a pair) never made any contact.
Student Feedback:
Students tend to complain that group work puts them at a disadvantage. The analysis
provided above does not bear this complaint.
Some individual students were extremely unhappy with the marks they received for the
literature review. This led to the marks of one tutor being internally reviewed, without this
exercise bringing to light problems with the original marking.
Method of returning feedback:
Literature review and report : cover sheet
comments and in-line comments in Turn-it- in
It should be noted that there have been
problems with the return of marks to students
(see below).
Module/component organisation
It seems important that students self-select their group. For this to work well, they should be
given advance notice – towards the end of their second or placement year- that they have a
module based on group work in their final year and will need to give the module leader the
constitution of their four-member group at the very beginning of their final year. This has
been done through an email specifically on this topic.
The Literature Review exercise was made more specific this year, and students received
precise guidelines in a lecture and a powerpoint posted on studentcentral as to what was
expected of them.
There were problems with the release of marks for the group reports on Student Central.
Due to inappropriate setting, this happened earlier than had been anticipated and at a time
when not all students had had their work marked on Student Central. It will be important for
the administrator and module leader to liaise next year in order to ensure that these
problems are avoided next year.
It could be beneficial to introduce more precise marking criteria next year for the group
presentation. The idea would be to make it possible to mark the presentation by reference to
a grid that would include both individual and group criteria. This would have two advantages:
reassuring the students that they are not pulled down by the performance of their peer and
allowing assessors to reward an excellent group performance without giving a possibly
unduly high mark to a weaker student.
External Examiner Comment
Action Plan
-
Prepare clearer marking criteria for the report and the presentation, and
communicate these to the students
Include in the module handout guidance on required and best practice regarding
group work.
Routing of report:
An electronic copy of this module report should be submitted to the administrative office
responsible for the courses where the module is delivered at the same time that marks are
submitted to the office, so (where necessary) the report can be circulated to the relevant external
examiner(s), with sample work, prior to the meeting of the examination board. The office will also
upload copies of module reports into the Quality Folder on BBS storage, so that they can then be
accessed on Studentcentral.
Where an external examiner makes comments about a module at an examination board or in their
external examiner report, these comments may be incorporated into, and responded to, in a
revised module report, which is then forwarded in electronic form to the School Quality Director
(SQD) and the relevant subject group leader. The module leader’s response should be conveyed
to the external examiner by the person designated to formally respond to the particular external
examiner (who will normally be a subject group leader or course leader). The SQD will arrange for
the relevant office to upload a revised copy of the module report into the Quality Folder in BBS
storage.
The SQD will monitor reports, and will liaise with subject group leaders about any outstanding
issues.