Individual Laboratory Assessment in Food Science: A Strategy for Differentiating Student¿s Laboratory Skills and Knowledge

Collaborative work, often called teamwork, is an important option for developing soft skills in higher education students. Unfortunately, when assessing technical and scientific knowledge, the application of team-based activities could result in overlooking the individual learning processes of each team member. For this reason, in this work, the comparison of a team-generated lab report and a final individual practical exam was performed to evaluate the latter¿s effectiveness, as an educational innovation for assessing laboratory skills and competencies and providing feedback. The implementation of both instruments in a Food Engineering course, resulted in a normal distribution when applying an individual instrument, which resulted in a more focused and controlled record of the students¿ performance and evolution throughout the course. This is a key finding for improving laboratory courses, where team-based activities could negatively affect the students¿ scientific development and overall course experience. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.

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