This paper reports on research that evaluates the potential of assessment to promote students' engagement with their first-year social work education; particularly their sense of connection with other students in ways that may contribute to student persistence in the initial stages of their studies. It presents the findings obtained from a qualitative study that explored students' experiences of undertaking a group presentation/performance assessment task in an introductory critical social work course at a regional Australian university. Overall, the results from a survey with course participants suggest that a group presentation/performance assessment fostered collaboration and cooperation among first-year students in a way that enhanced their engagement with each other, course material, and successful learning in this course. Students' responses regarding the assessment task strongly indicate that their engagement was not simply instrumental or formal, but rather ontological, in that the group presentation/performance engages the students' being as reflexive agents of change in the learning and assessment processes.