Building Equitable Student Project Groups - A Simulation Study to Assess Heuristic Assignment Methods

This paper explores methods for forming equitable project groups in a class by minimizing the range in mean cumulative quality point averages (CQPAs) across the groups. Using simulation, it forms representative classes of various sizes from real-world CQPA data, and it compares the approximate solutions of seven heuristic assignment methods to the globally optimal solutions found with mixed integer linear programming. Finding a near optimal heuristic is useful as exact methods can be computationally expensive or require specialized knowledge or software. Simulation results indicate that the Alternating Convergence heuristic consistently outperforms the other six heuristics, generating near optimal solutions with low computational cost. This suggests the Alternating Convergence heuristic is a practical method for building project groups when equitability in scholastic achievement supports one's pedagogical philosophy or objectives.