Peer Presence and Real-Time Assessment: A Symbiotic Relationship

Web-based learning environments often use games and simulations to enrich the learning process. Understanding the response of learners to these non-text-based environments is usually accomplished through laboratory testing or field surveys. The "click to submit" web-form questionnaire is a common method of gathering user feedback, however, these questionnaires are plagued by low response rates and inconsistent results. Research into survey design reveals many potential problems in the construction and administration of questionnaires - problems that are exacerbated by the nature of communication on the web. Intended to promote a sense of community among users and to gather accurate feedback from them, The National Film Board of Canada's NFBkids website fails to obtain useful feedback through its web-based questionnaires. Our study investigates an alternative methodology for gathering user preferences - by exploring solutions for NFBkids. According to preliminary user studies, real-time, peer-to-peer assessment techniques are "fun", they foster a sense of peer presence among a community of web users, and they succeed in gathering valuable user feedback.