Students’ perceptions about peer assessment for writing: their origin and impact on revision work

We investigate students’ negative perceptions about an online peer assessment system for undergraduate writing across the disciplines. Specifically, we consider the nature of students’ resistance to peer assessment; what factors influence that resistance; and how students’ perceptions impact their revision work. We do this work by first examining findings from an end-of-course survey administered to 250 students in ten courses across six universities using an online peer assessment system called SWoRD for their writing assignments. Those findings indicate that students have the most positive perceptions of SWoRD in those courses where an instructor graded their work in addition to peers (as opposed to peer-only grading). We then move to an in-depth examination of perceptions and revision work among 84 students using SWoRD and no instructor grading for assessment of writing in one university class. Findings from that study indicate that students sometimes regard peer assessment as unfair and often believe that peers are unqualified to review and assess students’ work. Furthermore, students’ perceptions about the fairness of peer assessment drop significantly following students’ experience in doing peer assessment. Students’ fairness perceptions—and drops in those perceptions—are most significantly associated with their perceptions about the extent to which peers’ feedback is useful and positive. However, students’ perceptions appear to be unrelated to the extent of their revision work. This research fills a considerable gap in the literature regarding the origin of students’ negative perceptions about peer assessment, as well as how perceptions influence performance.

[1]  Nancy Falchikov,et al.  Learning Together: Peer Tutoring in Higher Education , 2001 .

[2]  Samuel Totten.  Book Review of The Neglected "R": The Need for a Writing Revolution , 2004 .

[3]  Christian D. Schunn,et al.  Validity and reliability of scaffolded peer assessment of writing from instructor and student perspectives , 2006 .

[4]  N. Dorans.  CORRESPONDENCES BETWEEN ACT™ AND SAT® I SCORES , 1999 .

[5]  M. Daane,et al.  The Nation's Report Card: Writing, 2002. , 2003 .

[6]  A. Cooper,et al.  Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Peer Assessment: A Case for Student and Staff Development , 2002 .

[7]  N. Falchikov.  The place of peers in learning and assessment , 2007 .

[8]  Chin-Chung Tsai,et al.  University Students’ Perceptions of and Attitudes Toward (Online) Peer Assessment , 2006 .

[9]  Phil Davies,et al.  Computerized Peer Assessment , 2000 .

[10]  N. Denzin.  The Logic of Naturalistic Inquiry , 1971 .

[11]  Christian D. Schunn,et al.  A validation study of students' end comments: Comparing comments by students, a writing instructor, and a content instructor , 2009 .

[12]  John P. Bean,et al.  Untangling the satisfaction-performance relationship for college students. , 1986 .

[13]  Neil J. Dorans,et al.  Correspondences between ACT[superscript TM] and SAT[superscript R] I Scores. College Board Report No. 99-1. ETS RR No. 99-2. , 1999 .

[14]  Nona Tollefson,et al.  The Effects of Peer Evaluation on Attitude toward Writing and Writing Fluency of Ninth Grade Students. , 1987 .

[15]  J. Gosby.  MEDIA REVIEWS: Basics of Qualitative Research - Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory 2nd Edition by A. Strauss and J. Corbin. Sage Publications, , 2000 .

[16]  David K. Cohen,et al.  Educational Technology and School Organization , 2013 .

[17]  Nancy Falchikov,et al.  PRODUCT COMPARISONS AND PROCESS BENEFITS OF COLLABORATIVE PEER GROUP AND SELF ASSESSMENTS , 1986 .

[18]  Abbas Tashakkori,et al.  Mixed Methodology: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches , 1998 .

[19]  Christian D. Schunn,et al.  The nature of feedback: how different types of peer feedback affect writing performance , 2009 .

[20]  Christopher Rushton,et al.  Peer Assessment in a Collaborative Hypermedia Environment: A Case Study. , 1993 .

[21]  Linda M. McNeil,et al.  Contradictions of Control: School Structure and School Knowledge , 1988 .

[22]  F. Dochy,et al.  Peer assessment in problem based learning , 2001 .

[23]  N. Denzin.  Sociological Methods: A Sourcebook , 1978 .

[24]  J. Maxwell.  Learning Together: Peer Tutoring in Higher Education. , 2008 .

[25]  D. Carless,et al.  Peer feedback: the learning element of peer assessment , 2006 .

[26]  Christian D. Schunn,et al.  Scaffolded writing and rewriting in the discipline: A web-based reciprocal peer review system , 2007, Comput. Educ..

[27]  Wilfried Admiraal,et al.  Peer assessment in university teaching: evaluating seven course designs , 2006 .

[28]  P. Ramsden.  A performance indicator of teaching quality in higher education: The Course Experience Questionnaire , 1991 .

[29]  P. Abrami,et al.  Student Motivation to Learn via Computer Conferencing , 2000 .

[30]  K. Topping.  Peer Assessment Between Students in Colleges and Universities , 1998 .

[31]  N. Falchikov.  Improving Assessment through Student Involvement , 2005 .

[32]  Steve Graham,et al.  Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools. A Report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. , 2007 .

[33]  Mark G. Simkin,et al.  Student Perceptions of the Peer Review Process in Student Writing Projects , 1997 .

[34]  D. Boud,et al.  Rethinking assessment in higher education : learning for the longer term , 2007 .

[35]  Anne Venables,et al.  Enhancing scientific essay writing using peer assessment , 2003 .

[36]  M. Jacobsen.  Instructional Quality, Student Satisfaction, Student Success, and Student Evaluations of Faculty: What Are the Issues in Higher Education?. , 1997 .

[37]  N. Hoffart.  Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory , 2000 .

[38]  Alfred Joseph Lizzio,et al.  University Students' Perceptions of the Learning Environment and Academic Outcomes: Implications for theory and practice , 2002 .

[39]  Raymond S. Nickerson,et al.  Technology in education : looking toward 2020 , 1988 .

[40]  Rod D. Roscoe,et al.  Tutor learning: the role of explaining and responding to questions , 2008 .

[41]  Sheizaf Rafaeli,et al.  On-line question-posing and peer-assessment as means for web-based knowledge sharing in learning , 2004, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[42]  Jackie Nicholas,et al.  Qualitatively different experiences of learning mathematics at university , 1998 .

[43]  W. Cheng,et al.  Having second thoughts: Student perceptions before and after a peer assessment exercise , 1997 .

[44]  T. Gatfield.  Examining Student Satisfaction with Group Projects and Peer Assessment , 1999 .