Peer Assignment Research Articles

Evaluation of SOAP note performance in a pharmacotherapeutics course after implementation of a peer-review process

IntroductionSubjective, objective, assessment, and plan (SOAP) notes are widely utilized within pharmacy curricula. Implementation of a peer-review process for these assignments may improve student competence. Evidence is lacking regarding correlation between student-to-student peer-review and faculty grades for SOAP notes and correlation of SOAP note peer-evaluation to individual performance. MethodsThird year pharmacy students completed two SOAP notes in Pharmacotherapeutics IV. A peer-review process was implemented in spring 2020. After each SOAP note, students were assigned a peer's assignment to evaluate utilizing the same 50-point rubric as the faculty. SOAP note grades were compared between the 2019 and 2020 cohorts. ResultsAnalysis included 98 students in spring 2019 and 92 students in 2020. SOAP note faculty grades were different between 2019 and 2020 for the first SOAP note (37.6 vs. 41.1, P < .001) but not for the second (42.3 vs. 42.7, P = .49). Peer-review grades were higher for both SOAP notes compared to faculty grades. Peer-review grades did not differ between the first and second SOAP notes (45.5 vs. 45.6) while faculty grades did (41.2 vs. 42.7). The difference in scores from peer-review compared to faculty grades was −4.4 points for the first SOAP note and − 2.9 points for the second SOAP note (P = .08). ConclusionsThe peer-review process did not appear to improve SOAP note performance. Students tended to score better on the second note and appeared to gain proficiency in the peer evaluation process, suggesting a possible benefit of including additional SOAP notes.

Self-Selection of Peers and Performance

This paper studies how the presence of peers and different peer assignment rules—self-selection versus random assignment—affect individual performance. Using a framed field experiment, we find that the presence of a randomly assigned peer improves performance by 28% of a standard deviation (SD), whereas self-selecting peers induces an additional 15%–18% SD improvement in performance. Our results document peer effects in multiple characteristics and show that self-selection changes these characteristics. However, a decomposition reveals that variations in the peer composition contribute only little to the performance differences across peer assignment rules. Rather, we find that self-selection has a direct effect on performance. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, decision analysis. Funding: Funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) through CRC TR 224 (projects A01 and A02) is gratefully acknowledged. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.4267 .

Application cooperative teasching methods during practical exercises

This article discusses the effectiveness of teaching “cooperation” of the subject sports medicine in higher education. At the same time, in the process of training, students have the opportunity to jointly acquire knowledge in a team, small group and couple to ensure mutual development. Ultimately, collaborative learning fosters conscious discipline in the learner, sees its success as a group success, sets the stage for peer assignments, peer partnerships, peer support, and finally serious mental work.

The role of self and peer assessment in Higher Education

ABSTRACT Self-assessment and peer assignment have clear advantages for the training of responsible, critical, and reflective professionals. In recent years, self and peer evaluation have also been shown to be even more effective than lecturer evaluation when we assure anonymity through online platforms learning tools. Therefore, self and peer assessments are to become a core aspect of student-centred evaluation processes in Higher Education. Besides, a high concordance with lecturer evaluation may allow lecturers to also benefit from self and peer evaluation without an increase in their workload. In the present work, we compare the formative evaluation from the lecturer with the self and peer assessments through a virtual learning environment. The subject of study if formed by assessments prepared by students in a first-year course in a Social Sciences degree at the Universidade de Vigo, Spain. We find a strong concordance between peer assessment and lecturer assignment, and a moderate agreement between self-assessment and lecturer assignment. These results show that students perform well as peer evaluators, with peer assignment being a procedure with high validity and reliability.

Deskmates: Reconsidering Optimal Peer Assignments Within the Classroom

We find that knowledge spillover in the classroom depends on how peer personalities differ. In addressing the issue of within-group sorting, we conducted our field experiment within primary school classrooms where a pair of deskmates forms the smallest possible designated peer group. We further measured the non-cognitive peer difference between a pair of deskmates, defined as the averaged difference in their responses to Big Five personality questionnaire items, in order to understand the social process within each designated peer group. Our estimation results find that knowledge spillover between deskmates works only when their non-cognitive peer difference is relatively small, but a detrimental effect would be obtained otherwise. After taking non-cognitive peer difference into account, optimizing peer assignments yields a 2 − 6% gain in academic achievement after a semester. Recurring reassignments are needed to sustain this optimization gain because assimilation or differentiation takes place between deskmates over time.

Peer Feedback in Learner‑Learner Interaction Practices. Mixed Methods Study on an xMOOC

Although xMOOCs have shown benefits due to their accessibility to expert knowledge, the quality of their pedagogical proposal remains contested. It has not yet been proven that online education’s learner‑learner interaction practices in xMOOCs generate an improvement in the quality of learning and academic achievement. Peer feedback is a practice that can enhance learning in an environment with diverse student profiles and limited instructor participation. The present mixed methods study was devoted to identifying the perceptions of xMOOC participants regarding learner‑learner interaction and feedback practices. In the Energy Saving course on MexicoX platform, 1,176 participants answered an initial survey, 486 participants answered a final survey and 14 participants were interviewed after completing the course. Results show that most of the participants are willing to interact with their peers and participate in peer feedback activities. Although, in practice its value for summative assessment is an important factor that may predict involvement. It is found that diversity of expertise level is not an obstacle for participants to interact. Rather, participants consider that they may benefit from diversity by assessing their peer assignments and learning different alternatives and strategies in which a problem can be solved. Further, it is identified that peer assessment activities are more adequate for providing feedback than discussion forums, since the first promotes an environment in which participants can observe the performance of their peers showed in a more complex assignment. The findings of this study allow us to analyse inherent and external factors that configure learner‑learner interaction and that affect peer feedback in xMOOCs. It is concluded that more research is needed in order to understand the effect of some factors that may affect peer interaction and peer feedback in xMOOCs and to propose better strategies to improve peer feedback effectiveness.

Noticing and attending to relational process: a dialogical analysis of MSW student competency development in relational therapy

ABSTRACT We explored Masters of Social Work (MSW) student discourses of learning experiences related to Noticing and Attending to Relational Process (NARP) in a course devoted to clinical practice with families and couples. Within two to three weeks after completing recorded peer role-play assignments and receiving audio-recorded feedback from the instructor, five randomly selected students participated in an unstructured interpersonal process recall (IPR) interview. The instructor/first author queried students about specific role-play moments and reactions to instructor-produced, audio-recorded feedback regarding NARP competencies. We used dialogical analysis to identify discourses and rhetorical features of interview data. Five primary themes emerged. Based on our Bahktinian interpretation of interview data with students, our findings also demonstrated multi-voiced discourses, indicating students’ internal struggle to make sense of NARP and respond to instructor feedback. Educators and practitioners can more intentionally attune themselves to these discourses, potentially opening avenues for stronger social work service provision.

Score-Group Framing Negatively Impacts Peer Evaluations

How does group membership framing affect the feedback students provide learners? This paper presents two between-subjects experiments investigating the effect of Ingroup/Outgroup membership on effort spent in peer evaluations, and whether the group membership criterion type affects quality and stringency of evaluation. Two peer-review assignments were implemented in two separate classes. In the first study, students were nominally grouped by location they sat in class and non-nominally grouped by current class score; each was asked to review an Ingroup and Outgroup peer assignment. A second study randomly assigned students to one of four group types (random, score, motivation, and location); student reviewed two Ingroup assignments. In both studies, score-grouped students graded their peers more stringently than students grouped by location. These studies illustrate for system designers the impacts of group framing - and the disclosure of that-in peer review tasks.

Increasing Quality and Involvement in Online Peer Feedback Exchange

Design instructors are integrating the use of online peer review platforms to keep pace with growing class sizes. However, these platforms typically prioritize randomized peer assignment strategies and show only the current solution to peers when writing feedback. This can result in low quality feedback in project-based design courses. We report on an experiment in which students (N=59) worked on twelve-week design projects and both wrote and received online feedback at four stages. The experiment tested a novel assignment strategy of peer mentorship, where peers were assigned to give feedback to all stages of the same project, and tested showing the context from the preceding design stage when composing feedback. The results showed that displaying the context from the preceding design stage led to feedback with higher perceived quality at the late design stages (but not at earlier stages) and feedback from mentors prompts longer responses from the feedback recipients. Our work contributes deeper empirical understanding of how assignment strategies and showing additional context affects peer feedback and provides practical guidelines for instructors to implement these methods in design courses.

Trialling the Use of Google Apps Together with Online Marking to Enhance Collaborative Learning and Provide Effective Feedback

This paper describes a new approach to an ecology practical where the cohort was divided into four groups to collect data. Each group studied a different habitat; the cohort was further subdivided into seven groups to collect field data. Each of the four groups collaborated through Google Drive on descriptions and images of the habitat site, and also collaborated at the subgroup level on their own habitat data. The four groups then shared habitat descriptions with the aim to provide enough information to enable everyone to understand entire data set. Group work was assessed online and feedback was given at both the group and subgroup levels. At the end of the first stage, peer assignment of all the work was carried out on an individual basis to engage students in other habitats. A complete set of data was finally provided to all students, so that individuals could carry out their own analysis of all four habitats; work was again assessed online and feedback given to each individual. The three-stage assignment from group work to peer assessment to individual analysis was a success. The collaborative work through Google Drive enabled students to produce high quality documents that were valuable for the next step. The peer assignment enabled students to gain information on expected Minimum Standards and exposed them to a variety of habitats. The final stage was open ended and challenged students. This approach is recommended but the data collection process needs modification, and students need more guidance when completing the final stage of the assignment.

Faculty Development in Interprofessional Education: Designing and Implementing a Successful Program

Patient care is improved when health-care providers work collaboratively as teams. However, many institutions have not fully embraced these concepts and are not providing sufficient opportunities for their current health-care professional trainees. For institutions to properly educate health-care providers to be practice ready in interprofessional collaboration (IPC) teams upon graduation, faculty training programs are critical. Faculty development efforts in interprofessional education (IPE) must be strategic in their design and implementation, include a dedicated and experienced leadership team, and have adequate financial support. In this paper, the authors describe a faculty development program designed to promote IPE among multiple health-care professions. A three-session interdisciplinary faculty development series was developed, incorporating peer coaching, mentorship, self-directed learning, assignments, and lecture-based presentations as principle learning activities. The major learning objectives of this series were to (1) understand the roles and responsibilities of interdisciplinary team members, (2) identify challenges of an interprofessional approach to patient-centered care, and (3) apply collaborative approaches to the health-care needs of the patient. Strategies to promote active learning opportunities were planned for all three sessions, designed to encourage participants to learn with, about, and from each other to improve health outcomes. Upon completion of the series, participants expressed positive changes in perception of IPE and shared learning but remained divided in opinion of the practicality of working in health-care teams. The authors conclude that designing and implementing an interprofessional faculty development program takes time and is an ever-evolving process, requiring shared vision, commitment, flexibility, and sustained administrative support.

Students' perception of peer-assessment in the context of a treatment planning course.

Peer assessment is grounded in philosophies of active learning, and it would seem that this tool is a viable method for critical thinking development. The purpose of this article was to present how junior students at Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine (CWRU) perceive the value of a peer-assessment activity in the context of a treatment planning course. As a part of the final exam for the junior year Treatment Planning course, students were requested to evaluate a de-identified assignment submitted by one of their peers. Following the exam, a survey was sent to the students to determine how they perceived the peer-assessment activity and how this relates to other learning experiences in the course. Our results show that students' perception of the benefit of peer grading was not associated with any individual peer-assignment characteristics, or course characteristics. Similar results were obtained regarding the perceived benefit of identifying evidence. Moderate correlations were observed between peer evaluation characteristics. It was concluded that: (i) junior dental students are not homogenous in their opinions regarding the value of an activity related to evaluation of a peer's assignment and (ii) student's perceptions regarding the peer-grading component of peer assessment were not correlated with perceptions related to other learning processes in the treatment planning course.

Anatomy and Histology as Socially Networked Learning Environments

An exploratory study to better understand the "networked" life of the medical school as a learning environment. In a recent academic year, the authors gathered data during two six-week blocks of a sequential histology and anatomy course at a U.S. medical college. An eight-item questionnaire captured different dimensions of student interactions. The student cohort/network was 48 first-year medical students. Using social network analysis (SNA), the authors focused on (1) the initial structure and the evolution of informal class networks over time, (2) how informal class networks compare to formal in-class small-group assignments in influencing student information gathering, and (3) how peer assignment of professionalism role model status is shaped more by informal than formal ties. In examining these latter two issues, the authors explored not only how formal group assignment persisted over time but also how it functioned to prevent the tendency for groupings based on gender or ethnicity. The study revealed an evolving dynamic between the formal small-group learning structure of the course blocks and the emergence of informal student networks. For example, whereas formal group membership did influence in-class questions and did prevent formation of groups of like gender and ethnicity, outside-class questions and professionalism were influenced more by informal group ties where gender and, to a much lesser extent, ethnicity influence student information gathering. The richness of these preliminary findings suggests that SNA may be a useful tool in examining an array of medical student learning encounters.

Peers and Peer-Based Interventions in Supporting Reintegration and Mental Health Among National Guard Soldiers: A Qualitative Study

National Guard soldiers experience high levels of mental health symptoms following deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan, yet many do not seek treatment. We interviewed 30 National Guard soldiers with prior deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan to assess mental health treatment barriers and the role of peers in treatment engagement. Interview transcripts were analyzed by a multidisciplinary research team using techniques drawn from grounded theory. The following themes were identified: (1) personal acceptance of having a mental health problem rather than treatment access is the major barrier to treatment entry; (2) tightly connected, supportive peer networks can decrease stigma related to mental health problems and encourage treatment; however, soldiers in impoverished or conflicted peer networks are less likely to receive these benefits; and (3) soldiers are generally positive about the idea of peer-based programs to improve treatment engagement, although they note the importance of leadership support, peer assignment, and unit specialty in implementing these programs. We conclude that some, but not all, naturally occurring peer networks serve to overcome stigma and encourage mental health treatment seeking by soldiers. Formal peer-based programs may assist soldiers not sufficiently benefitting from natural peer networks, although there are barriers to implementation.

Clinician's Commentary on Montuno et al.

Clinician's Commentary on Montuno et al.

Peer Assignment Review Process for Collaborative E-learning: Is the Student Learning Process Changing?

In recent years collaborative e-learning has been emphasized as a learning method that has facilitated knowledge construction and supported student learning. However some universities especially in developing country contexts are struggling to attain minimal educational benefits from its adoption and use. This paper investigates the application of a peer assignment review process for collaborative e-learning to third year undergraduate students. The study was aimed at evaluating the effect of the peer assignment review process on the student learning process. Data was collected using a survey questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS Version 16.0. While the student reported positive impact of the peer assignment review process in terms of facilitating students to put more effort and improve their work; quick feedback on their assignments; effective sharing and development of knowledge and information and the need of computer competence to manipulate the peer assignment review system, analysis of the quantitative data indicated that the process had limited effect on the learning process. This is attributed to lack of review skills, absence of lecturer scaffolding, low ICT literacy levels and change management. Keywords-Peer Review; Collaborative E-learning; Learning Process; Students; University; Uganda; Developing Country.

CPRTM: Adopting An Out-Of-Discipline Innovation

Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) is a web-based instructional tool that encourages writing gain for students without adding grading pain for the instructor! The use of CPR provides students frequent opportunities to hone both writing as well as peer review skills in a guided environment. And once an assignment is authored, instructors have little to do beside monitor progress and arbitrate possible grading complaints! The four phase process of the Calibrated Peer Review reinforces learning of the content material and provides immediate assessment feedback. Students access the assignment by logging into CPR. Phase one involves the preparation and submission of the students text response to the writing assignment. During phase two the student evaluates three instructor written calibrations (high quality, mid quality and low quality) of the same assignment using pre-specified rubrics assessing content and style. An unsuccessful outcome prompts a return to the calibrations and a retry. A successful outcome moves the student forward into phase three. The software randomly selects three anonymous peer assignments. Using the same evaluation criteria the student assesses each assignment. At phase four, the student is presented his/her own assignment for self-review. Time limits at each phase insure timely completion of the assignment in full. The CPR tool provides immediate feedback on student performance at each phase. At the conclusion the CPR tool produces a complete set of results corresponding to performance at each phase; a score for the text entry, a score for the three calibrations, a score for the three peer reviews, a self-assessment score and concluding overall score. To bypass problems commonly associated with students reviewing student work, CPR has built in a set of weighting factors based on standard deviations which are reflected in the students own scores. Given its discipline-independent nature, Calibrated Peer Review makes an excellent instructional management tool to encourage students to read for content, master the content, write-to-learn, as well as, critically review writing.

Redesigning multi-channel P2P live video systems with View-Upload Decoupling

In current multi-channel P2P live video systems, there are several fundamental performance problems including exceedingly-large channel switching delays, long playback lags, and poor performance for less popular channels. These performance problems primarily stem from two intrinsic characteristics of multi-channel P2P video systems: channel churn and channel-resource imbalance. In this paper, we propose a radically different cross-channel P2P streaming framework, called View-Upload Decoupling (VUD). VUD strictly decouples peer downloading from uploading, bringing stability to multi-channel systems and enabling cross-channel resource sharing. We propose a set of peer assignment and bandwidth allocation algorithms to properly provision bandwidth among channels, and introduce substream-swarming to reduce the bandwidth overhead. We evaluate the performance of VUD via extensive simulations as well with a PlanetLab implementation. Our simulation and PlanetLab results show that VUD is resilient to channel churn, and achieves lower switching delay and better streaming quality. In particular, the streaming quality of small channels is greatly improved.

A new fast P2P video transmission method applied in asymmetrical speed channel environment

In an asymmetrical speed channel environment like asymmetric digital subscriber line, the up-link bandwidth is normally smaller than the down-link bandwidth, which will lead to extremely low utilization of down-link bandwidth when current P2P video transmission is applied. To overcome this, a new fast P2P video transmission method applied in an asymmetrical speed channel environment is proposed in this paper. On the basis of the many-to-one concept, the proposed method uses a new multi-peer aggregation technique to enhance the utilization of down-link bandwidth. In addition, an adaptive peer assignment algorithm is also introduced in order to minimize the overall transmission time. Experimental results show that by using our proposed method, the utilization of down-link bandwidth is significantly improved, and the overall transmission time is greatly reduced.

Fair Peer Assignment Scheme for Peer-to-Peer File Sharing

The reciprocal virtue of peer-to-peer networking has stimulated an explosion of peer population and service capacity, ensuring rapid content distribution in peer-to-peer networks. Critical issues such as peer churn, free riding, and skewed workload significantly affect performance results such as service agility, fairness, and resource utilization. To resolve these problems systematically, this study proposes a peer assignment scheme that supports fair peer-to-peer file sharing applications. The proposed scheme exploits the peer duality of both server-oriented peer capacity and client-oriented peer contribution. Accordingly, the system server can prioritize download requests and appropriately assign server peers to uploading file objects. Several functional extensions, including peer substitution and elimination, bandwidth adjustment, and distributed modification, help cope with subtle situations of service starvation and download blocking, and hence make the system design robust and amenable. Simulation results show this design is examined under both centralized and distributed peer-to-peer environments. Performance results confirm that the proposed mechanisms are simple but effective in maintaining service agility and fairness, without loss of overall service capacity in peer-to-peer files sharing systems.