Looking at Ourselves—Self-Assessment and Peer Assessment: practice examples from New Zealand

Abstract

This paper shares the experiences of the writer in utilising self-assessment and peer assessment as a practitioner and as an educator, by means of three vignettes. The first vignette describes facilitated peer supervision and assessment with voluntary workers for Victim Support. The second vignette describes self-assessment by social work students in their practicum. The third vignette describes a peer feedback process whereby participants in a course on Social Service Supervision present a video of a supervision session to their fellow students for critical comment. While the examples are taken from a social work context, the discussion is relevant to preparation for professional practice across the human services. The ways in which change is facilitated through the processes of self-assessment and peer assessment outlined in the examples is highlighted. Consideration is given to some of the issues arising from the utilisation of self-assessment and peer assessment in each of these situations, including constructive criticism, power issues of equal participation and learner-centred versus teacher-centred approaches and cultural issues.