Responsible facilitation of group-based legal education: a framework from management education

Peter Morgan, University of Bradford

4th Annual LILI Conference, 11 January 2002 at Coventry TechnoCentre

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has been developing Key Skills Awards within various higher and further education institutions, and the government has allocated £7.8m to a Key Skills Project aimed at developing skills initiatives in higher education. Employers (for example Mullens, 1997) have also argued the need for students to develop group working abilities. Management researchers (for example Jennings 2000, Whetten, Cameron and Woods 2000, the Association of Graduate Recruiters 1995) have all indicated the need for such skills to be on the agenda.

The Law Discipline Network reported the need for law students to develop group working abilities and defined teamworking as follows:

“...[a student is able to] establish working relations with others, defining, sharing and delegating responsibilities within the group, interact effectively in social groups and promote productive cooperation.”

Prince (2001) notes that the law benchmark on teamworking states that

“...students should be able to demonstrate 'a basic ability to work in groups as a participant who contributes effectively to the group's task'.”

This paper will assume that such a view (the need for the development of group working skills amongst law students) is accepted.

In order to enable staff to facilitate responsible skills development in our students, the paper will include some ideas from the field of management training as to how groups change and develop, the need for a diverse set of personalities within groups and issues in relation to the psychology of learning. Finally, the paper will go on to discuss some educational issues (assessment, transferability etc) in relation to the responsible facilitation of skills development and will note the fact that schemes and opportunities for skills development exist outside of the academic curriculum. By doing these things, it is intended that employers' needs may be met through the responsible design of learning and development opportunities.

There are a great deal of other issues which also warrant discussion; defining each key skills area, discussions in relation to conscious v unconscious skills development, the time taken to devise and develop appropriate models of skills development and so on. These will not be addressed in this paper, but their importance needs to be noted.

Finally, it would seem appropriate to attempt to look at some learning from the delivery of a management curriculum in relation to the psychology of skills development and in particular psychological issues in relation to group working. The paper will also identify some pertinent problems that students experience when working in groups.

Group based learning

The psychology of personal development

Of the various models of learning available perhaps the most applicable here is that of Kolb, Rubin and McIntyre (1984), and developed by Honey and Mumford (1989). On a theoretical basis, the Law Discipline Network has it about right when it argues:

“ There may be a moment at which the development was formally started, but there needs to be both practice and further development at later stages. Whatever the objectives set, it is clear that students need to be given a number of opportunities to develop their skills, a series of experiences through which they can practice and develop consciously the skills. ”

The model that Kolb et al proposed makes useful sense. The idea is that learning is cyclical; we have an experience, we think about it, we develop a theory about the experiences we have and then we plan for improvement in the result when we next have a similar experience. It has been termed a learning cycle, and can apply well to areas of personal development.

The Law Discipline Network argues that:

“ ...the learning cycle may well be a movement from experience to theory, rather than the more traditional academic approach of learning theory before application. ”

and it is right. Traditionally, education in management education as well as perhaps law provides the conceptual framework and then asks students to apply the knowledge they have learned. It is not uncommon to hear those who have had some previous experience note that an academic course provides a framework for that which they knew and were doing previously.

There are some assumed pre-requisites in relation to the cycle that the reflection and evaluation which goes with it is accurate and that feedback is provided. When students write "practice makes perfect" in their personal development plan they are correct to some extent, but there is a need for feedback as well.

An obvious application of the learning cycle might be the development of an individual's presentation skills. An individual carries out a presentation (action) and then reflects upon the things which went well and the areas where the presentation might be improved (reflection) with the help of some accurate feedback (possibly provided by a friend or tutor). They might then be given some tuition on the factors which can help a presentation succeed (theory), being asked to identify key learning points and action points at the end of a session (planning). The next occasion that individual carries out a presentation, they would be expected to change the presentation to take account of the ideas presented, and thus develop their presentation abilities. The complete cycle is needed for personal development.

The same would apply to group working or any area of skill, which is why there is such a push for reflection as a mechanism for facilitating learning. It is not really a new mechanism, but the recognition that reflection is one part of the learning cycle: miss that part out, and a valuable opportunity for development and learning is missed.

Group psychology

Once a curriculum is established which takes account of the learning cycle the next step is to manage the learning process. One important part of so doing is to manage the process of individual behaviour within groups. This helps avoid comments such as "well, things were being said on e-mail, but nobody ever said anything to their face within a group" (heard recently from a year one student when reflecting on his group working experience on a statistics module). It also enables every individual eventually to make a contribution they feel happy about. The basic tenet is that the behaviour of individuals within groups will change during the course of a group's development.

This model was established originally by Tuckman (1965) and is well known in management training as the forming/storming/norming/performing model, each word describing each of the four stages a group will go through before reaching maturity:

• forming - each group member is new to the task. No one is really sure of their role or why they are there, or whether other members of the group are 'friends' who can be trusted or political players who may use different rules to enforce their own position. Leaders of groups at this stage need to create clear guidance to answer these questions and enable each member to feel valued and recognised.
• storming - members will have established some sense of role and identity and will fight to save it. Strongly held views and values will surface as group members disagree about what to do, how to do it, by when things need to be done and who will do them. The challenge for a leader at this stage is to manage the disagreements, to ensure that no one is uncomfortable with the conflict and to steer a way through, identifying key criteria by which to make a decision (where appropriate) first and then to bring the group together. A group leader should ensure that members are commenting on ideas, rather than each other (ie feedback should not be personal) and that no group member is immune to compromise.
• norming - having negotiated with each other, a group will need to establish rules and procedures by which progress in the future can be made, perhaps to avoid any breakdown in group relations. For example, ideas may need to be submitted to the group leader first, or perhaps only one member of the group should speak at any one time. Once these are in place a group can move forward much faster. The leader will need to ensure that rules and procedures are verbally agreed to by all in writing as well if necessary on occasion and adhered to.
• performing - having agreed on procedures, dealt with personal relationship issues within the group and now feeling comfortable, the group can then get on with the task(s) set or the project to be managed and achieve the results sought.

There are a number of applications of this model to the development of group working skills in higher education, and some examples can be given in relation to a skills based module at the University of Bradford School of Management:

1. it is helpful for any group based assessment to occur at the end of a module or semester to ensure that the group has gone through as many of the above stages as possible (or that the facilitation, and some may argue even assessment, of a group task takes account of the extent to which the group has developed)
2. before setting any group task, ensure that all members of every group feel as informed as they can be about their role and the individuals with whom they are working. In relation to a module at the institution referred to above, students are asked to find out about the person sitting next to them before introducing them to the rest of the group. In that way students feel that they at least know something about those with whom they are working. Without such reassurance some students may not speak up and contribute less, not because they are unable to, but rather because they are unsure of their role or others' abilities/knowledge.
3. where no leader for each group is appointed, the role must be fulfilled by someone. The most appropriate person in the early stages is the course tutor, who can guide a group through any difficult situations. This is why many feel that the model of a 'stand alone' skills module is inappropriate in its intensive use of resources.

The challenge is that a staff member needs to use appropriate facilitation skills and to develop them where necessary.

The Law Discipline Network notes the following:

“ The difference is that the staff member is not only using those additional skills for her own performance; she is expected to support students in acquiring a set of skills as well as knowledge. As is clear from the interviews with recent graduates, there are questions to be raised about the credibility of staff in performing this role and in the evaluations which they make of students. ”

Typically, there are various skills involved in facilitating a group (questioning, listening, problem solving, critical thinking etc) and any group could require the use of any skill at any time; this prospect may frighten some, but these skills are generally required for effective teaching (or the facilitation of learning as some define it) anyway.

Factors influencing team success

There are a number of factors which may need noting if not accounting for when developing group based assignments. Some of these may be under the control of academic tutors, and others can only be limited. Issues in relation to individual differences have been noted by Prince (2001). Belbin's research (1993) into the personalities needed for a successful team over a period of nine years enabled a model of team roles to be developed. The principle behind the model was that a successful team needed all nine sets of ability (relating to individuals who were creative, impatient, careful and methodical, extrovert, enthusiastic etc) to be represented in a successful team. Dulewicz (1995) supports the fact that such team roles exist, and the notion of coherence (ie having all skills represented) has been supported by research with Masters' students (Senior 1998).

The size of any group also seems to play a part. Belbin believes that so long as all the team roles are represented within the group, it does not need to be a group of nine people; between four and six should be sufficient. Much above eight normally presents something of a problem. There are other considerations as well; groups should have a common purpose, specific goals, a common approach and mutual accountability. The latter point is especially pertinent, because it symbolises the difference between group working in an academic situation and the same activity in an occupational setting. In an academic situation, there seems to be less accountability than when team working is part of a job. Various methods of assessing group work have been tried, and it is certainly true that sorting out group problems can be time consuming and resource intensive.

Group based assessment

Having examined the psychology of group working in relation to learning/skills development theory, group development, managing individual behaviour and the factors which can help or hinder group performance, it is now appropriate to consider the assessment of group based learning within the academic curriculum. There are various challenges in this, not least ensuring that students are given the opportunity to be treated fairly, but that poor group workers are given opportunity throughout their academic careers to develop and improve such skills. Treating individuals fairly is a tricky business.

There is no simple solution to this, but various solutions have been proposed to the problems students have faced. Most relate to various forms of assessment, dealing with the reward and punishment issues identified above to ensure that behaviour is managed. A forced rating scale (ie with four points, rather than the traditional five) with an ipsative structure (giving all members a score between 0 and 100, but ensuring that no two members get the same score) has worked in some businesses (for example A3 Business Solutions Inc). Others (for example staff at the University of North Alabama) adapt an approach typically known as 360° feedback, where there is multiple feedback on an appropriate scale from various individuals, but also where the names of individuals who do no work do not appear on that group's assignment. Others (for example an MBA instructor at McMaster University in North America) simply ask students to put their names to any pages of a report they wrote. Others (for example staff at Cleveland State University) use a straightforward 'one mark is what you get', so "peer pressure has to work" (e-mail from one staff member).

A less resource intensive solution has been proposed by Bacon, Stewart and Silver (1999), where students can 'fire' group members early on where they do little work. It does not require any intensive problem solving by staff and students are empowered to sort out problems quickly. Whether this solution gives students the skills development opportunities they require for the development of appropriate skills is unclear, but students would learn quickly from the experience.

Others have tried to use various minutes of meetings, journals and logs, reflective assignments and peer nominations to determine relative work contributions, whereas others simply ask student to produce a reflective piece on group working simply to facilitate the development of their group working (as well as reflective and analytical) skills.

Within my own experience two forms of peer assessment has been used. At year two level I simply give students the chance to tell me about any student they feel does not deserve the marks and I will talk to this student. Subjective in structure? Yes. Subjective in result? No; all those I have seen have agreed that they have not done any work and therefore see it as fair that they do not get the marks for that piece of work. Adopting such an approach requires good interpersonal skills and preparation (information gathering), in the same way that conducting an appraisal interview requires such activities and skills.

The second approach involves asking every student to sign a copy of a handout I require from each group for group presentations. They also sign a 'contribution sheet' outlining their contribution to the group (this has to be countersigned by another group member) as well as a reflective piece on how well the group worked together. I have used this for only one semester and it seems to be working; there are hardly any problems with this scheme in place, compared with last year when there seemed to a general inexplicable lack of effort by some students.

A typical quote from one marketing professor probably sums up the feeling that most may have regarding the various methods used to deal with poor performers within groups:

“ None of these methods is perfect but students seem happy that their concerns have been addressed even if the result is not what they expected. ”

(Professor Rao, Long Island University, NY)

The whole issue about fairness and the assessment of group based assignments seems to relate to respect for the individual. If this seems to be missing from fellow group members, a student will expect it from a staff member in order to feel they are being treated fairly. That may as the quote above shows simply require staff members to listen and act in a way that seems fair to all concerned, in exactly the same way a manager would be expected to in industry. Of course, any university guidelines and procedures agreed with quality assurance in mind will also need to be considered.

Challenges

There are, of course, a large number of challenges faced by any member of academic staff when faced with a need to provide a skills development curriculum, both in relation to group working skills and in a wider context.

Transferability

One such issue is that of transferability. The Law Discipline Network refers to the artificiality of certain group working scenarios and the fact that students were unable to relate the group working case study or scenario to the workplace. The use of the task was therefore limited in its more general application. There may be a role for assessment here and the nature of the task may have an impact. At Aston University it is noted that students from business and law combine to complete a group based exercise, where skills and knowledge from both disciplines contribute to enable a group to perform effectively.

Within modules examined at the University of Bradford School of Management students are asked to write a reflective piece about their experiences in relation to various subject areas (for example leadership, group working, decision making) where such experiences can be taken from any arena of their lives (such as living in student houses, part time jobs, any academic module). It is hoped that enabling such personalisation of the activity can not only increase students' self awareness regarding such skills areas, but also enable them to apply learning from their skills module to a wider context.

The issue of transferability is a controversial one. Issues of whether transferability really exists and can be measured are still open for debate, as investigators such as Hyland and Johnson (1998) and Kemp and Seagraves (1995) have shown. Holman (1995) suggests that anecdotal evidence relates to tacit rather than explicit skills development, where students are unable to identify the source of their development. This means that transferability becomes a very difficult concept to prove in relation to skills development within higher education.

Group working exercise

In order to develop group working skills various exercises can be used and devised. The exercise in use at Aston University is one example of a collaborative exercise using two academic departments. Others are in wide use. Exercises can develop many different kinds of skills, either separately or together. A group which is working well will use creativity and will question assumptions, will use its decision making skills, listening skills, skills in terms of giving feedback, there may be a leader, there is a need for accurate and complete communication, time keeping and co-ordination, and so on. At the School of Management exercises and projects are used with various subjects (such as statistics, international business, personal development) to integrate the development of personal skills with subject content (even if feedback is not given on such skills to truly facilitate their development see Kolb et al above)

The exercise to be demonstrated relates to a number of group working skills. There is normally no time limit, so the exercise is not really designed to develop time planning skills, but it does require students to share and organise the delivery and collection of information from each other. The exercise took about three hours to design (by someone experienced in their design) and used a table to devise the information links across the various types of information given.

As far as transferability is concerned, the communications exercise can be easily adapted for different situations; all that is needed is two sets of information giving a complete scenario. Asking students to complete a reflective assignment identifying their use of such skills in other situations can assist in enabling students to transfer their skills from one context (academic) to another (job related or social), although (as already suggested) proving the link is not easy. At Bradford, the exercise is the first of two given to students; the second is given after a session on time management and asks students to plan and carry out an ambiguous task under tight time constraints. As the Law Discipline Network notes:

“ ...general transferable skills need to be clearly transferable. To encourage students to think of these skills as transferable, the exercises to develop them should encourage that transferability. ”

The challenge is that exercises which seek to do so need to be presented as such, in order that students actually explicitly recognise the development of such skills, but so doing may inadvertently create a barrier to transferability. For example, it is possible to envisage a scenario where an exercise aimed at developing group working skills is designed around content directly relevant to the course. It is then presented as an exercise designed to develop such skills. The 'psychological map' in the students' minds may then influence their desire to take part in the exercise (some seeing it as irrelevant to their degree). Not presenting the exercise as a skills development exercise, however, can mean that students are unable to testify to the development of their skills when trying to find employment. The only way of creating middle ground in such cases might be to incorporate some kind of reflective formal assessment as suggested above.

Conclusion

The information given above has covered a number of areas of relevance to those seeking to develop personal transferable, key, core or whatever other term is given to the skills sought by employers, both in the legal profession and elsewhere, and therefore highlighted as important by government agencies such as the Qualifications and Curriculoum Authority.

The paper has also presented some important ideas from the psychology and personal development fields in relation to working in groups. It is important that any skills development activities incorporate all stages of the learning cycle action, reflection, theory and planning and that those facilitating group development are aware of the needs groups have at different stages of development. Groups also need to have a good mix of the skills, personalities and team roles needed for the task they have been set. Academic staff would do well to be aware of the techniques which can be employed to manage the behaviour of individuals within academic groups, so that the problems often experienced by students can be avoided.

The paper has also presented some further challenges arising for the academic seeking to enable their students to develop group working skills (transferability, assessment, and fairness), and has presented some ideas in relation to exercises which can be used within the academic curriculum. Above all, the paper has attempted to show how the psychology of group development and group working as applied in management contexts needs to be applied to all situations where the development of group working skills is sought. The facilitation of such skills development needs to incorporate knowledge and experience in order to be responsible and in order to respond to the needs of employers, government and ultimately the students themselves. Responding responsibly requires awareness and personal development from academic staff themselves; for some, that is the next challenge.

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