Peer Assessment

Watch this short video to set the stage for infor­ma­tion about peer assess­ment

Overview

Peer assess­ment (some­times referred to as review) is a process where stu­dents eval­u­ate and pro­vide feed­back to anoth­er stu­dent.

When stu­dents active­ly par­tic­i­pate in the eval­u­a­tion process for their peers, they gain auton­o­my and choice, which evi­dence shows enhances engage­ment. Whether the eval­u­a­tion is for­ma­tive or sum­ma­tive, when imple­ment­ed cor­rect­ly, this process ben­e­fits both stu­dent and instruc­tor.

For stu­dents, engag­ing in peer assess­ment encour­ages them to inter­act with assess­ment cri­te­ria which will ben­e­fit their own work, while sug­gest­ing alter­na­tive assess­ment ideas to their peers (Mul­der, Baik, Nay­lor, & Pearce, 2014). Added to this, stu­dents learn how to pro­vide peer feed­back, an essen­tial attribute to their life beyond the col­lege walls. Typ­i­cal­ly, when engaged in peer eval­u­a­tion, it is not­ed that stu­dents pro­vide more feed­back than instruc­tors which can be invalu­able for learn­ing.

For instruc­tors, mak­ing space by not hav­ing to grade assign­ments can off­set time spent focused in more inten­tion­al teach­ing in oth­er areas or prop­er­ly guid­ing stu­dents through the per assess­ment process. Work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with stu­dents in this man­ner, helps an instruc­tor to under­stand any mis­con­cep­tions the peer asses­sor may have when pro­vid­ing feed­back, and is avail­able to steer the stu­dent to cor­rect the mis­un­der­stand­ing which may have gone unad­dressed oth­er­wise. 

Let’s not for­get that stu­dents might not always enjoy the peer feed­back process, and instruc­tors may expe­ri­ence push­back. Stu­dents may find it uncom­fort­able to grade their peer or pro­vide feed­back on some­thing that they are them­selves unsure of.  How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to share the evi­dence behind this strat­e­gy to demon­strate the ben­e­fits for both them and their peers.  

McGill offers a great resource about how to design peer assess­ment com­plete with ideas for assign­ments and how to use rubrics.  

U of Alber­ta also has some rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion on peer assess­ment.

Cor­nell pro­vides exam­ples of how to “get start­ed” with peer assess­ment.  

UBC pro­vides exam­ples from fac­ul­ty who have inte­grat­ed peer assess­ment as well as infor­ma­tion on how to get start­ed.  

If this is a strat­e­gy that you wish to inte­grate into your course, con­tact CTLI for sup­port.