Nicolai Kaarsen, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen
Group Work, Exercises and Exam Grades – Evidence From a Randomized Trial
At second year of the BA program in Economics at the University of Copenhagen, students have to hand in and pass a number of exercises to be allowed to sit the final exam. Usually, the students are allowed to hand in these assignments in groups. This paper investigates the effect on exam results of requiring that they hand in the assignments individually. To this end, I conduct a randomized trial in a class of 60 students. The results are that the effect on exam results of requiring students to hand in exercises individually is close to zero and statistically insignificant. I also discuss possible solutions to a number of practical issues which arose when I ran the trial.