Abstract
The use of team projects is common in higher education. Teamwork offers an avenue to help students learn to collaborate and develop the interpersonal skills needed for career success. However, the teams are not always effective, which may undermine student learning, growth, and development. In the current research, we integrate accountability, valence, motivation, and social loafing theories in order to advance an understanding of the role of peer evaluations conducted at the end of a team project. We use a state-of-the-art peer feedback system that allows students to assess and evaluate each other on five competencies critical to teamwork. This system also permits the assessment of overall team functioning. These outcomes are critical as they are related to learning as well as grades on team projects. Over three years and using a total sample size of 162 teams and 873 students, we found that the use of peer evaluations for grading purposes, compared to a control group, promoted effective team member behavior and overall team health. Future research is needed to further investigate the optimal use of peer evaluations in a variety of contexts using a variety of methods.
Highlights
The use of teamwork in the classroom has been steadily increasing due to both the potential educational benefits and the professional skill development required to meet 21st century work requirements (e.g., Crossman and Kite, 2012)
In previous research, peer evaluations were viewed as accurate and useful by students using the ITPmetrics.com feedback platform used in the current research (O’Neill et al, 2019)
Not examined in that research was whether the use of peer evaluations would improve teamwork behavior and functioning, leaving open an important empirical question about the role of peer feedback in student teams in higher education
Summary
The use of teamwork in the classroom has been steadily increasing due to both the potential educational benefits and the professional skill development required to meet 21st century work requirements (e.g., Crossman and Kite, 2012). According to our reasoning above, grade-based peer evaluations should create stronger perceptions of individual team member accountability as well as introduce a meaningful outcome associated with the peer evaluations (i.e., high valence) This should discourage social loafing because the presence of evaluations will draw attention to personal behaviors and the higher perceived impact of these behaviors on the team. We argued that grade-based peer evaluations should produce more effective team member behavior as well as healthier teamwork in general (i.e., the CARE model) This is because grade-based peer evaluations may create a climate of accountability, minimize social loafing, and create stronger individual contributions to the team effort. Hypothesis 3: Team performance will be higher when peer evaluations are used for grades compared to general feedback purposes
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