Investigating peer review as a systemic pedagogy for developing the design knowledge, skills, and dispositions of novice instructional design students

Abstract

This research investigated peer review as a contemporary instructional pedagogy for fostering the design knowledge, skills, and dispositions of novice Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) professionals. Participants were graduate students enrolled in an introductory instructional design (ID) course. Survey, artifact, and observation data were used to understand the impact of peer review on student ID knowledge, skill, and disposition development and student-generated designs as well as the usefulness of the peer review processes employed. The primary data source, participant perception data from a Web-based survey, was triangulated with student ID artifacts and instructor observations. Findings indicate that peer review supports improved IDs and an authentic experience of ID as both a collaborative and problem-oriented process but, less so, as a creative one. Additionally, findings illuminate practical strategies for improving a systemic peer review pedagogy in a professional learning environment. A minor degree of caution and resistance toward peer review as a learning approach by a small number of participants suggests that instructionally designed support for strategy adoption and use is important. A discussion of findings presents scholarly and practical implications of peer review for students and mentors of design.