POWER OF PEERS: EXPERIENCES USING AN ONLINE PEER ASSESSMENT TOOL TO GRADE STUDENT WORK

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores the implementation, outcomes, and student perceptions of the use of an online tool for anonymous peer assessment of student work. Peer assessment, where one student assesses the work of another, provides an opportunity for important skill development, as well as a fully-scalable strategy for rich, timely, and frequent feedback. In first and third year engineering courses at the University of British Columbia, we have begun using an online peer assessment tool (peerScholar). The tool divides the peer assessment process into three phases: a creation phase where the work is written or uploaded, an assessment phase where students are randomly assigned to assess the work of a set number of their peers, and a review phase where students review the feedback they received, with options to revise their work or assess the quality of feedback received. We have successfully used this tool in two large (n = 750) classes and one moderate-sized (n = 130) class, with a wide range of different types of student work, including letters, technical memoranda, detailed design reports, and video presentations. Through surveys, student feedback with the tool and the process has been positive. Students at both year levels overwhelmingly recognize the importance of peer assessment—over 90% identified it as an essential skill for an engineer, and over 85% felt opportunities for peer assessment should be embedded in the curriculum. Both groups indicate that they felt the process of reviewing others’ work was beneficial for their own understanding of the material; however, first year students were more likely than third year students to put more effort into their work knowing it would be peer assessed, and that they found the content of the feedback received more helpful to their learning. Student acceptance has been good. In a third year mechanical design course, three different design assignments were independently assessed by students using peerScholar and by teaching assistants. The outcomes across all measures were encouraging: for each assignment, the students and teaching assistants had similar mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum values, as well as reasonable correlation (r = 0.5 overall). Overall, we consider the adoption of peerScholar a success. Students have been receptive, challenges have been minor, and feedback is more detailed and frequent.