Individual effectiveness, team cohesion, and academic performance in cooperative teams: Evidence from bias-corrected peer evaluations

Assessing individual contributions in cooperative learning remains a central challenge in higher education, as peer evaluations are subject to systematic biases. This study examines whether individual effectiveness in cooperative work and team cohesion predict students’ academic performance (measured through an end-of-semester individual written examination), thus testing whether competencies developed through teamwork transfer beyond team-based activities. Longitudinal data were collected from 428 undergraduate students working in 83 stable teams during a semester-long Portfolio Management course taught across several degree programs. Peer ratings on behaviorally anchored scales (CATME-BARS) were combined with the Social Relations Model to derive measures of individual effectiveness and team cohesion corrected for rater-, dyadic-, and team-level biases. Multilevel linear mixed-effects models showed that individual effectiveness positively predicted individual academic performance, and this association varied across teams but was not moderated by team cohesion. Team cohesion was positively associated with academic performance between teams, whereas within-team changes in cohesion over the semester showed no effect. By contrast, improvements in individual effectiveness across the semester predicted higher academic performance. These findings suggest that competencies developed through cooperative work transfer to individual academic performance, with implications for the design and assessment of cooperative learning.