Peer assessment in university teaching: evaluating seven course designs

TLDR

Peer assessment involves students evaluating each other’s writing and providing feedback. The study aims to determine an optimal design of peer assessment that enhances undergraduate writing skill acquisition. The study examined seven peer assessment designs, evaluating factors such as activity quality, oral feedback interaction, learning outcomes, and student evaluations. Students engaged seriously with peer assessment, used feedback to revise work, mostly offered evaluative comments, sometimes explored ideas, and the study recommends combining written and oral feedback.

Abstract

Peer assessment is understood to be an arrangement with students assessing the quality of their fellow students’ writings and giving feedback to each other. This multiple‐case study of seven designs of peer assessment focuses on the contribution of peer assessment to the acquisition of undergraduates’ writing skills. Its aim is to arrive at an optimal design of peer assessment. Factors included in this study are: the quality of peer assessment activities, the interaction between students in oral peer feedback, students’ learning outcomes, and their evaluation of peer assessment. Most students took assessing the work of their fellow students seriously, and included the peer feedback in the revision of their work. In most conversations, students provided feedback in an evaluative manner. In others, the interaction was more exploratory. For peer assessment, we recommend a combination of written and oral peer feedback.