The Framework › Social
Group Work & Collaboration
Distribution of responses
How institutions vary
Middle 80% of the 10 institutions with enough responses. Social domain mean: 8.0.
Institution is a major factor here: weaker and stronger institutions are 2.5 points apart on this topic. Where a student studies shapes their experience more than the topic itself does.
What we ask
“Group work runs smoothly overall.”
What students say, and why
Absent members, poor communication, uneven effort.
"Half the team is gone most of the time; poor communication."
"I’ve said I want more responsibility, but I’m waiting for the other student to start slacking."
Small, tight groups with good cohesion.
"We’re few, we have good cohesion, and we have fun together."
"We have a good community and can back each other up."
Representative, de-identified comments from the lowest- and highest-scoring responses, translated where needed.
Related insights
No deep-dive published for this topic yet. Browse all insights or the methodology.
How we measure it
This is the topic-level average across its subtopics, on a 0-10 scale (higher is better), so an individual subtopic can score higher or lower than the topic shown here. Figures are scored responses from the last 12 months, mapped to the 2026 framework via the canonical question mapping; the cross-2020 figure on the Index uses the full response base. Movement compares the most recent six months with the prior six. Distribution bands: 0-4, >4-<8, 8-10. Cross-institution aggregate; no single institution identified; minimum group size applied.
Read the State of the Student Experience 2026
Our annual report: what three million student datapoints reveal about wellbeing, teaching and belonging, and what actually moves recommendation and retention. Free, for a work email.