Peer Assessment Activities Research Articles

Investigating anonymity in formative and summative peer assessment: Effects on university students’ social-affective factors, perceptions and preference

This study examines the impact of anonymity on students’ social-affective processes, as well as their perceptions and preferences regarding peer assessment and grading for both formative and summative purposes. 177 higher education students participated in this quasi-experimental study. They participated in two peer assessment activities after receiving training on the provision of effective feedback. The first peer assessment activity was formative in nature, while the second was summative. The study had two conditions: anonymous peer assessment and non-anonymous peer assessment. Results indicate that although 73.6 % of all students (90.5 % in the anonymous condition and 56.5 % in the non-anonymous condition) preferred anonymous peer assessment, this preference did not significantly impact perceptions of fairness or peer pressure. This challenges assumptions around the effects of anonymity. Interestingly, non-anonymous settings were still favourably viewed, with the open-ended responses indicating the value of face-to-face dialogue. This suggests that non-anonymous, highly formative peer assessment requiring more interaction may lead to better social and interpersonal outcomes.

The impacts of peer assessment on critical thinking competence: An epistemic network analysis

Critical thinking competence has recently become a popular topic in education research; however, it is insufficiently researched in tourism education. This study seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of peer assessment in developing critical thinking skills in a Chinese context. Peer assessment data were collected through group news presentations and individual assignments of college students studying tourism management. An epistemic network analysis was conducted to examine the role of peer assessment in students' critical thinking competence. The findings show that students’ critical thinking skills significantly improve as peer assessment activities are conducted, with higher-level critical thinking skills clearly emerging at a later stage of peer assessment activities.

Peer assessment to promote self-regulated learning with technology in higher education: systematic review for improving course design

Peer assessment is one of the approaches to develop self-regulation of learning. When evaluating the work of peers, metacognitive strategies of critical reflection are employed. They improve their own learning especially if evaluative feedback and/or suggestions for modification are provided. The aim of this systematic review is to learn how technology can facilitate self-regulation of learning, using peer assessment activities. We focus on higher education. To achieve the objective, we searched WoS and Scopus, obtaining 15 publications that concatenate the four search terms: self-regulated learning, peer assessment, higher education, and technology. These four terms must appear in the title, abstract or keywords. In this way, we ensure that the topic to be reviewed is central to the publication. The results are analyzed using the model for systematic review, which has three phases: description, synthesis, and critique. A proposal has been made to improve the design of courses in virtual classrooms, focusing on Moodle, and to include peer evaluation to improve self-regulated learning. It highlights the possibility of virtual classrooms to configure a rubric to guide the evaluation, together with the request for mandatory comments to justify the evaluation. This helps the student reflect on what is wrong and why, and how to improve. It also highlights the facility to randomly assign a specific number of tasks per reviewer or per task, and to make the whole process completely anonymous. The technology allows short deadlines for submission and review times to be maintained for instant feedback, as it can be configured with a single click. Finally, and related to this, Moodle can reopen the submission phase, to send an improved version based on feedback, and the evaluation phase, to check that the proposed improvements have been made. This helps to a greater extent to apply metacognitive strategies.

Effects of Descriptive Peer Assessment on the Learning of Middle and High School Students in South Korea

This study examined the impact of online peer assessment based on descriptive questions on student learning in Korea. The validity of the scores for student-written descriptive responses rated by middle and high school students were compared to teacher grading. The impact of peer assessment activities based on descriptive questions on student learning was also investigated, as was investigated students’ perceptions of peer assessment. First-year middle and high school students studying science were recruited. The results reveal a high level of agreement between peer assessment scores of middle and high school students and teacher grades. The peer assessment activity based on descriptive questions enhanced students’ academic achievement. Students stated peer assessment activity was effective for conceptual learning. This study confirmed the effectiveness of peer assessment activities based on descriptive questions in students’ conceptual learning.

Self vs. peer assessment activities in EFL-speaking classes: impacts on students’ self-regulated learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills

AbstractAssessment has several advantages like involving students in learning and making them cognizant of their strengths and weaknesses. The effects of peer assessment and self-assessment as two main kinds of assessment have not examined on EFL learners’ self-regulated learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills; therefore, the present research attempted to inspect the impacts of self and peer assessment activities on self-regulated learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills of Iranian EFL learners. To do so, 75 Iranian EFL learners were selected and divided into two experimental groups (peer assessment group (PAG) and self-assessment group (SAG)) and one control group (CG). Then, three questionnaires of self-regulated learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills were administered to the students as the pre-tests of the study. After that, one experimental group received the treatment via using self-assessment and the other experimental group received the instruction through peer assessment. The control group received a teacher-based assessment instruction. After teaching 13 English conversations to all groups, 3 post-tests were given to them to measure the impacts of the treatment on their self-regulated learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. The results of one-way ANOVA showed that there was a substantial difference between the post-tests of the experimental groups and the control group. The results showed that both experimental groups outperformed the control group in the post-tests of self-regulated learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. Furthermore, the outcomes revealed that there were no significant differences between the post-tests of the experimental groups. It can be concluded that both types of assessments play a vital role in English language teaching and learning. Based on the results of this study, language teachers, materials developers, and education authorities can concentrate on using self and peer assessments as one of the main strategies to develop the language learning ability of Iranian EFL learners.

Teachers’ Perspective on Using Oral Peer Feedback in Public Speaking

Assessment activities are closely related to the process of learning activities that cannot be separated. There are three processes in teaching and learning activities. That is input, process and output. Peer assessment has an important role in an English learning process, especially in the realm of speaking. Input is the student himself, the process is related to the curriculum, teaching materials, and teaching methods. And output is the result of learning. Assessment is available in all three domains. Assessment is carried out before the learning process, when learning is carried out, and after learning is carried out. Because of the importance of assessment factors in learning, there are many forms of assessment during learning. One form of assessment that supports the process of learning English in the realm of speaking is peer assessment activities. Some researchers believe that peer assessment plays an active and beneficial role for both students and teachers themselves. This qualitative research aims to determine and evaluate the benefits of peer assessment and perceptions of four subject teachers in an upper secondary school as teaching material from the results of assessments conducted by their students. Data was obtained through semi-structured interviews containing opinions, challenges and benefits from the application they obtained from this oral peer feedback assessment method

The role and features of peer assessment feedback in college English writing.

Peer assessment is a common pedagogical practice for evaluating students' writing in college English classrooms. However, in-depth research on the learning outcomes after peer assessment is scarce and inconsistent; how peer feedback is used has not been fully explored either. This study compared peer feedback to teacher feedback and explored the different features of feedback and its impact on draft revision. Two specific research questions were answered in this study: (1) In which aspects can peer feedback supplement teacher feedback in improving the linguistic features in writing? (2) What are the differences in features of peer feedback versus teacher feedback? And how do they connect to feedback take-in? Two writing tasks were assigned to 94 students. One received teacher feedback and the other peer feedback. Pre-feedback and post-feedback writings in both tasks (4 sets in total) were scored and human ratings were adjusted using Many-Facet Rasch modeling to control for differences in leniency. Drawing on three natural language processing (NLP) tools, this study also assessed writing qualities by comparing 22 selected indices related to the scoring rubrics for human raters, which involve three dimensions: cohesion, lexical quality and syntactic complexity. Peer and teacher feedback was then coded based on features of feedback to explore their influence on draft revision. The results showed that both peer and teacher feedback had positive effects on rating scores. We confirmed peer feedback as an effective classroom approach to improve writing, though limited compared to teacher feedback as reflected in the indices. In terms of feedback features, students often stopped at identifying the language problems, while the teacher provided more explanations, solutions or suggestions regarding the problems identified. Implications for peer feedback research and implementation of peer assessment activities are provided.

Safe and sound: examining the effect of a training targeting psychological safety and trust in peer assessment

IntroductionPeer feedback can be very beneficial for student learning in higher education, yet students may feel uncomfortable providing and receiving peer feedback: they may for example not feel safe in the group or have little trust in their peers’ abilities to provide feedback. Surprisingly, only few studies have investigated how students’ feelings of discomfort can be reduced. To fill this gap, we created a 1-h training session using active learning methods. The training focuses on enhancing students’ perceptions of psychological safety, trust in their abilities and in their peers’ abilities to provide feedback.MethodsThe efficacy of this training was tested using a quasi-experiment with pre-and post-test design. Third-year bachelor students in physical education participated in a peer feedback activity to fulfill the requirement of an obligatory course. In 2019–2020, 47 students participated in a peer assessment activity without specific training on psychological safety and trust (control group), while in 2021–2022, 42 students received specific training before peer assessment (experimental group).ResultsAnalyses include a comparison of the control and experimental groups with regard to (1) the evolution of their perceptions (psychological safety, trust in their abilities, and trust in their peers’ abilities) for pre-to post-test, (2) the quality of the feedback they provided to their peers (3) and the improvement of students’ work between the draft submitted for the peer activity and the final version submitted to the professor.DiscussionResults do not support the training’s efficacy, yet suggest pathways for future research.

Procedures for online peer assessment: Assessing algorithm problems in school mathematics for future teachers

This action research study explored how peer assessment can help students and teachers evaluate algorithm problem-solving skills in mathematics. The study used a self- and peer-assessment activity in Moodle to assess 18 out of 40 Grade X students (10 boys and eight girls) from a Kathmandu Valley, Nepal school. The students solved algorithm problems in arithmetic, algebra, statistics, and geometry. The study followed the action research methodology of planning, implementing, assessing, and discussing the interventions and outcomes. The results show that workshop activity can engage students in solving algorithm problems in mathematics. The study also discusses how cognitive and constructivist theories can explain some of this activity's unique aspects and potential uses. Moreover, the study highlights the benefits and challenges of self- and peer-assessment in mathematics for enhancing students' interest and abilities in the classroom. The study suggests students can develop analytical and evaluative skills using evaluation criteria to assess their peers' work. The study also implies that students are proactive, critical, and collaborative learners who can use self-and peer assessment to improve their mathematical abilities to solve algorithm problems in the classroom.

Peer assessment, self-assessment, and resultant feedback: an examination of feasibility and reliability

ABSTRACT Self and peer assessments have been identified as effective strategies to develop a deeper understanding of complex concepts, enhance meta-cognitive capacity, and support learner self-efficacy. This study examines data related to peer and self-assessment exercises completed within a university engineering programme (n=61). Data related to peer-assessment scores, self-assessment scores, and expert assessor scores are analysed. Quality of feedback generated during the peer assessment activity is also considered. An open data set is included within the manuscript and hosted on the Open Science Framework. The results of this study suggest relatively high peer-assessment reliability when compared to expert assessments, although peer scoring tends to be consistently overestimated. In contrast, self-assessment scores demonstrate relatively low reliability when compared with expert assessor scores. The quality of feedback provided during the peer assessment exercise demonstrated a strong relationship with student performance. Recommendations for further refinement and implementation with larger cohorts are discussed.

Students' experience of peer-interaction in a blended learning course at a South African higher education institution

An investigation of students' experiences of peer-interaction in a blended eLearning course was conducted. In order to understand, evaluate and improve student experience of peer interactions, four learning facilitators revised the course, to align with current instructional design best practices which included a fair amount of peer interaction. In this qualitative study, activities were designed using a constructionist approach and structured to increase student engagement with content and peers including frequent collaborative group-work activities. Students had to design and develop four artefacts online while presenting findings and assessing the products and performance of their peers in contact sessions. The findings mitigate the importance of course design, peer assessment and group work activities that impact student experiences of peer interaction. Implications for practice and policy: (1) This study informs course designers of best practices in blended learning. (2) The findings re-iterates the value of group work and peer assessment in blended learning. (3) Peer interaction has an impact on student experience in blended learning. (4) Aligning course design, peer assessment and group work activities allows for successful blended learning.

Cognitive Conflicts Emerged from Feedback from Peer Assessment and Artificial Intelligence

This narrative study explores the cognitive conflicts that pre-service teachers experience during peer-assessment activities in an artificial intelligence (AI) facilitated academic writing course. This study applies a narrative inquiry research design to Indonesian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing classes. Three pre-service teachers pursuing an undergraduate degree in English language education at an Indonesian public university were recruited. The data were obtained from participants' stories, follow-up semi-structured interviews, and photos as an artifact to complete the data. The data was then analysed thematically. The participants’ cognitive conflict experiences were gathered during process writing and peer assessment. The findings show that the cognitive conflicts experienced by the participants were mostly from old myths and false beliefs. It brings advantages to pre-service teachers. The cognitive conflicts support the critical thinking of pre-service teachers. They discussed the material in detail, explored the different ideas, and helped them to confirm the incorrect knowledge and misunderstanding among them. This finding also implies the need for pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and teacher educators to critically consider the cognitive conflicts in an L2 writing classroom, particularly in madrasah tsanawiyah (junior high schools), madrasah aliyah (senior high schools) and higher education institutions contexts.

The Relationship between Self- and Peer Assessment in Higher Education: A Systematic Review

Background: To promote a student-centered approach and sustain the development of a self-regulated attitude toward academic achievement, assessment in higher education should integrate different perspectives: teachers’ feedback is crucial, but it needs to be supported by self-assessment and peer assessment activities. Methods: The aim of the current systematic review is to examine the most recent literature (from 2011 to 2022) on these topics, considering the relevant findings that may have theoretical and practical applications in higher-education settings. Three of the broadest online databases for educational research (ERIC EBSCO, Science Direct, Web of Science) were considered for the search, which resulted in 30 documents being retrieved and considered in the analysis. Results: Self- and peer assessment seems to be two distinct processes that may complement and influence each other; although they seem particularly accessible, effectively assessing one’s own work and giving one’s peers useful feedback is not an easy task, due to several specific cognitive and social issues. Conclusions: The findings show an increasing interest in these topics, with particular attention to the potential benefits that could be derived from a combined and effective use of these assessment processes in higher education.

Continuity and Change in Assessments Methods: a Peer Assessment Activity Combined with Self-assessment in a Language Teaching Course

L’objet de cette note de pédagogie universitaire est une évaluation expérimentale par les pairs. Le contexte est une formation en didactique des langues à l’Institut national supérieur du professorat et de l’éducation (Inspé) de La Réunion en 2021-2022, s’adressant à cinquante-six étudiants. L’étude s’appuie sur deux enquêtes menées auprès des participants en amont puis en aval de l’évaluation par les pairs, qui constitue ainsi un cas concret. Après avoir présenté la pertinence et les atouts escomptés du dispositif en nous appuyant sur les travaux scientifiques qui traitent de ce point, nous concevons cette activité comme étant bien davantage qu’une simple « évaluation-sanction ». Dans notre étude de cas, l’évaluation par les pairs est associée à une auto-évaluation, elle occupe une place certaine dans l’apprentissage, elle facilite la rétroaction et permet notamment une réflexion métacognitive. À l’issue de l’expérimentation, plusieurs interrogations sont soulevées, comme l’écart entre les notes des auto-évaluations et des évaluations par les pairs. Nous terminons notre étude par des points de vigilance et des recommandations.

Exploring the Development of Student Teachers’ Knowledge Construction in Peer Assessment: A Quantitative Ethnography

Peer assessment (PA) is a formative assessment tool that can effectively monitor the development process of knowledge construction. In comment-based PA, comments contain the evidence of how the assessors construct knowledge to conduct professional assessments, which initiates a research perspective to explore the dynamic knowledge construction of the assessors. Quantitative ethnography is both a method for the quantitative analysis of qualitative data and a technique for the network modelling of professional competencies, providing a new way of thinking about the analysis and evaluation of knowledge construction processes. In this paper, quantitative ethnography was used to mine the comments generated from comment-based PA activities to reveal the characteristics of student teachers’ knowledge construction and the developmental trajectories of knowledge structure at different learning stages. The experimental results show that the student teachers’ knowledge structures and knowledge levels evolve in the PA environment, and the cognitive network gradually tends to become more complex and balanced. The student teachers showed stage and gender differences in the level of knowledge progression during the learning process. The second PA was a turning point in knowledge progression. The knowledge structures of the male and female groups are biased towards different kinds of knowledge elements.

COMPARING STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES IN AN ONLINE PEER ASSESSMENT: DOES ANONYMITY MATTER?

Peer assessment is a fundamental activity aiming to involve students to participate actively in their own learning processes. In the context of EFL online learning, the peer assessment was conducted in the online mode as well. This study aimed to: 1) compare students’ attitudes in doing an online peer assessment in two different conditions of anonymity, 2) explore students’ perceptions of the anonymous and identifiable online peer assessment.  Seventy students of the English language education department in a private university participated in this study. Assigned to two different conditions, i.e anonymous and identifiable online peer assessment, the students were engaged in a Workshop activity, which was an asynchronous Moodle-based online peer assessment. Each student assessed three peers’ works as well as provide feedback comments. A questionnaire with close-ended and open-ended questions was used to investigate the students’ attitudes as well as perceptions of the different peer assessment formats. An independent samples t-test was performed to compare the attitude scores of both groups. The result indicated that students in the anonymous group showed a slightly better attitude compared to those in the identifiable group, yet the difference was not significant (t = 1.164, p > .05). From the questionnaire result, it was also found that the students in the anonymous group had more positive perceptions towards online peer assessment activity. These findings imply that while the anonymous online peer assessment is more favoured by learners, it might not be able to guarantee positive development in students’ overall aspects of attitudes.

Students Reflection Toward the Application of Peer Assessment Activity by Using Moodle-Based Workshop to Empower Learning Autonomy

This research is an endeavor to portrait an effort to empower learners’ autonomy through peer assessment activity by using Moodle-based workshop. The method employed in this study was descriptive case study. 30 students taken from one class were involved in this study as the participants. The data of the research was gathered through administering questionnaire and conducting focused group discussion. The instruments were designed to find the answer of the following question, i.e., to what extend does peer assessment activity using Moodle-based workshop empower learning autonomy? Peer assessment activity was applied in Text Based Structure Class focusing on the topic about English Clauses. Autonomous learning indicators that become the focus of this research are: a) determining the objectives, b) defining the content and the progress of learning, c) selecting appropriate methods and techniques, d) monitoring the applied techniques methods, and e) evaluating what has been achieved. The findings of this study reveal that peer assessment activity by using Moodle-based workshop can promote learners’ autonomy. It is also discovered that the learners are able to learn from the exchanging inputs activities with their peers and most importantly they can access and review the inputs anywhere and anytime they desire.

Enhancing Student-Teachers Assessment Skills: A Self-and Peer-Assessment Tool in Higher Education

This study used a self-and peer-assessment activity in Moodle, a learning management system, to investigate the self-and peer-assessment abilities of student-teachers. To enhance self- and peer-assessment in some author-taught courses, students submitted online texts graded by their peers using a grading scale determined by course facilitators as a rubric or aspects approved by course facilitators. This study aimed to design and investigate self-, and peer-assessment activities among 18 students (10 boys and 8 girls) enrolled in one of Kathmandu University Schools of Education’s MPhil/Ph.D. program in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) in Nepal in 2021. The objective was to identify the most effective strategies for involving student-teachers in the learning and assessment processes using self- and peer-assessment as a learning and assessment tool using action research as a research methodology. This study followed the procedures of planning, intervening, evaluating effectiveness, and sharing learning processes within the action research framework. In order to achieve the research objectives, this article discussed some of the Workshop activity’s key strengths and applications within cognitive and constructivist theoretical frameworks, among others. The article concluded by outlining the key advantages of self-and peer assessment in increasing student engagement and improving higher-order skills. These are analytical, and evaluation skills developed through the process of grading self- and peer submissions on a variety of criteria (aspects). The findings show that students are responsible for learning, have metacognitive skills, and use a dialogical, shared teaching and learning model. For higher education, it is a useful tool for self-and peer- assessment.

Are men and women really different? The effects of gender and training on peer scoring and perceptions of peer assessment

A number of studies have expressed that gender might be a source of difference and bias in peer assessment activities. However, evidence supporting this remains mixed and scant. The present study examined gender difference and accuracy bias between men and women assessors’ peer scoring of same-sex or opposite-sex writing samples using a quasi-experimental approach in which we implemented peer assessment training to explore if it could minimise gender difference and bias. Additionally, we also explored the effects on participants’ perceptions of trust and comfort in giving peer scores. A total of 145 (men = 25) psychology students enrolled in four separate courses participated in this study. Two of the classes received peer assessment training, while the other two only received task instructions. Participants were divided into eight scoring subgroups where they peer scored three writing samples of varying quality (poor, average and excellent) using a scoring rubric in Eduflow. We found that, regardless of their training condition, men and women assessors did not differ in their peer scores of men and women peers. Only untrained men assessors showed less trust in their abilities and discomfort when peer scoring women assessees’ writing samples.

In-service EFL students’ peer assessment for the enhancement of their writing skills

This study attempted to investigate the extent to which peer assessment activities contribute to enhance in-service EFL students’ writing skills. Based on the constructivist theory, a case study design was implemented and both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were used to explore how 120 in-service students at Dilla University, Ethiopia, took part and responded to peer assessment activities to improve their writing competencies. Data was gathered through four tools, namely, questionnaire, focus group interviews, observation and document analysis. The findings suggest that peer assessment activity, though students’ perceptions and past experience impact, can aid peers in developing their writing performance through interaction, sharing feedback and addressing the challenges they face in the process of writing.