ABSTRACT
Pedagogy and research document the importance of small group communication skills. Yet despite the unchallenged importance of learning small group communication skills there have been few systematic efforts to identify and develop a valid and reliable measure of group competencies. This chapter identifies advantages of assessing group competencies and the issues that need to be addressed in order to develop a comprehensive group assessment tool. A review of research and small group assessment tools are presented. The first step in developing a group assessment instrument is to identify the purpose of the instrument. Small group competencies need to be identified and criteria for assessing the competencies should be formulated. Finally, the instrument should be developed and tested.
