Exploring Assessment Approaches for Student Group Projects in Undergraduate Computing Education

Teamwork and group projects are a prominent feature of undergraduate computing education. At the tertiary level, educators use group projects to nurture professional skills and employability. Yet, student concerns about fairness continue to drive discourse around what is assessed and how. Instructors may choose to evaluate—either individually or collectively—principles, the process, the final product, professional behaviour, or students’ progress. However, the range of methods for assessing student group projects in undergraduate computing remains insufficiently characterised. This article takes a two-pronged mixed-methods approach, surveying assessment approaches and interviewing educators. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of studies published from 2013 to 2024 that examine the assessment of student group projects in undergraduate computing contexts identifies considerable variation in assessment practices, which are synthesised through qualitative content analysis into a schema of 23 distinct modes. A series of eighteen long-form semi-structured interviews with instructors of group project-based computing courses from around the globe examines instructor perspectives and challenges. Concerns about the parity and inclusivity of some methods permeate the literature and are echoed in the interview findings. Peer evaluation is a recurring theme, as are tools designed to monitor individual contributions to shared deliverables. While there is limited empirical evidence supporting the suitability of any one approach, there are also intriguing opportunities which computing departments are well-placed to implement, such as versioning, tracking, and analytics. The article concludes by listing recommendations for assessment practice and outlining directions for future research to improve the comparability, transparency, and effectiveness of group project assessment in undergraduate computing education.