Observed Quality of Formative Peer and Self-Assessment in Everyday Mathematics Teaching and its Effects on Student Performance

Sandra Zulliger,Alois Buholzer,Merle Ruelmann

doi:10.12973/eu-jer.11.2.663

Abstract

<p style="text-align: justify;">The positive effect of peer assessment and self-assessment strategies on learners' performance has been widely confirmed in experimental or quasi-experimental studies. However, whether peer and self-assessment within everyday mathematics teaching affect student learning and achievement, has rarely been studied. This study aimed to determine with what quality peer and self-assessment occur in everyday mathematics instruction and whether and which students benefit from it in terms of achievement and the learning process. Two lessons on division were video-recorded and rated to determine the quality of peer and self-assessment. Six hundred thirty-four students of fourth-grade primary school classes in German-speaking Switzerland participated in the study and completed a performance test on division. Multilevel analyses showed no general effect of the quality of peer or self-assessment on performance. However, high-quality self-assessment was beneficial for lower-performing students, who used a larger repertoire of calculation strategies, which helped them perform better. In conclusion, peer and self-assessment in real-life settings only have a small effect on the student performance in this Swiss study.</p>

Highlights

Peer assessment and self-assessment (PASA) are considered two of the five key elements of formative assessment (Black & Wiliam, 2009)
The current paper addresses these research gaps by analysing the observed quality of PASA in everyday mathematics lessons with regard to the learning process and outcome on students of different ability levels
The research questions are: What quality of PASA occurs in everyday teaching settings? Does PASA quality positively affect student performance or metacognitive activity, operationalised as using different calculation strategies? Do students of different ability levels benefit from PASA quality?

Summary

Introduction

Peer assessment and self-assessment (PASA) are considered two of the five key elements of formative assessment (Black & Wiliam, 2009). While peer assessment (PA) focuses on collaborative and cooperative reflection, assessment, and sending and receiving peer feedback (Kollar & Fischer, 2010; Strijbos & Wichmann, 2017), self-assessment (SA) focuses on self-reflection and assessment with self-feedback (Andrade & Valtcheva, 2009) Both approaches emphasise student feedback on themselves or peers, and increase student involvement in assessment, stimulating metacognitive processes and optimising individual learning (Black & Wiliam, 2009; Panadero, 2016). Several meta-studies have demonstrated the positive effect of PASA on students' learning performance (Graham et al, 2015; Sanchez et al, 2017) These previous studies are often based on (quasi-)experimental designs or self-reports. 811), despite its high potential for enhancing learning It remains unclear whether all learners benefit from PASA and why and how it affects the learning process and the outcome (Andrade, 2019). The research questions are: What quality of PASA occurs in everyday (non-experimental) teaching settings? Does PASA quality positively affect student performance or metacognitive activity, operationalised as using different calculation strategies? Do students of different ability levels benefit from PASA quality?

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Discussion

Conclusion