I assign a group research project in my principles courses and I ask each group member to evaluate their overall effort on the project and their impressions about the overall contribution to the quality of the project.
For a sample of 200 or so students, here is what they think of their effort:
For a sample of 200 or so students, here is what they think of the quality of their work:
Mind you, they received their project grades before filling out this survey. The class average was somewhere between a B- and a C+. Regarding the project, virtually all of my students hated it. I randomly assign each of the 300 students in my class to a group of 4. I then randomly give them a topic to work on – they have no choice in the matter. The topics are meant to be fun and interesting for both me, the groups and the rest of the class (each group presents during extra class time) and that can be illuminated using simple data and appeals to the basic principles we learned about in class. For example, why do cable TV companies not offer a la carte programming, are sports stadiums good for local economies, should you buy extended service plans on basic consumer items, etc.
Why do I do this? There are a variety of reasons. My guess is the students think I get some strange pleasure out of torturing them. But that is not the case. It lets me accomplish several things:
Good stuff, although I doubt many would connect the group assignment with socialism. But another issue is that on the survey, we’d have to consider the marginal benefit of saying above average versus cost. Presumably the cost is next to nothing, maybe some guilt if you’re lying while the benefit is thinking of yourself better or hoping the grade is adjusted for effort.
I’ve been reading a book called “Predictably Irrational.” I think this was the book, but it could have been a lecture by the author that shows that people can be influenced by other things. One of the things he did was have people write (or see?) the Ten Commandments and then report something against a group that had to report something. The results showed that there was almost no cheating or lying when they did the Ten Commandments, but there was a lot when they didn’t. So it would be interesting if you had the class do something like that (or maybe half the class) and then state effort/quality.
Your title cracked me up. Ask anybody who knows me and they’ll confirm that I believe that I am at least 4 σ above the mean in driving ability. 🙂