Social loafing in group-based learning: student-created and instructor-created group perspectives Rajesh Rajaguru and Roshni Narendran Department of Management and Marketing, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia, and Gayathri Rajesh Independent Researcher, Hobart, Australia Abstract Purpose – Social loafing is a key inhibitor in group-based student learning and is a key challenge in administering group-based assessments in higher education. This study examines differences in the effects of antecedents of social loafing (disruptive behaviour, social disconnectedness and apathy) on work quality by comparing student-created and instructor-created groups. The study also investigates how group members’ efforts to “pick up the slack” of social loafers in the two kinds of groups moderate the effect of antecedents of social loafing on work quality. Design/methodology/approach – Post-graduate students from two different sessions of the Marketing Management unit participated in the study: 95 students from session 1 and 90 students from session 2. One session represented student-created groups and the other session represented instructor-created groups. Each group consisted of five students. Partial Least Square (PLS) estimation using SmartPLS was used to assess the direct and interaction effects. Findings – The results indicate differences in the effects of the antecedents of social loafing such as apathy and disruptive behaviour on work quality for both student-created and instructor-created groups. Social disconnectedness was found to have no significant effect on work quality. Interestingly, the study found significant differences in the effects of “pick up the slack” on the work quality of student-created and instructor-created groups. Members of student-created groups who picked up the slack of social loafers improved the work quality for unit assessment. This effect was not significant for instructor-created groups. Originality/value – Extant literature on social loafing predominantly focusses on its effect on students’ work quality and educational achievement. This study contributes to the literature by investigating how the student- created and instructor-created group members’ efforts to pick up the slack of social loafers moderate the effects of the antecedents of social loafing on work quality. Keywords Perceived social loafing, Student-created groups, Instructor-created groups, Group work quality, Picking up the slack Paper type Research paper Introduction Over the past few decades, there has been growing emphasis on the appropriateness of group-based activities in student learning (Freeman and Hancock, 2011; Sykes et al., 2014. This emphasis has been due to the requirements of national and international accreditation agencies who have mandated group work in unit assessments and stressed the need for students to actively participate and experience group-based learning (Aggarwal and O’Brien, 2008; Freeman and Hancock, 2011; Sykes et al., 2014). One of the most widely used justifications for using group work in the curriculum is that it prepares students for the “real world”, that is, it enhances employability after graduation (Sridharan et al., 2018). Group assignments in universities have been seen as a way to develop team skills (Kalfa and Taksa, Social loafing in group-based learning 483 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0040-0912.htm Received 31 January 2019 Revised 4 July 2019 27 November 2019 14 January 2020 Accepted 9 February 2020 Education þ Training Vol. 62 No. 4, 2020 pp. 483-501 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0040-0912 DOI 10.1108/ET-01-2019-0018