Investigating the capacity of self and peer assessment to engage students and increase their desire to learn

The authors have previously reported the effectiveness of using self and peer assessment to improve learning outcomes by providing opportunities to practise, assess and provide feedback on students’ attribute development. Despite this work and the research of others, we have found a significant number of students perceive self and peer assessment to be an instrument to facilitate fairness focusing on its freerider deterrent capacity, rather than providing opportunities for reflection and feedback to complete the learning cycle. It is the authors’ intention that all students would benefit, both from the reflective nature of self and peer assessment and the feedback it provides, and for these benefits to be seen as valuable and desirable so that students are eager to participate. In this paper we report investigating the use of self and peer assessment multiple times for different purposes within a single subject. In particular, we examine whether providing students with multiple opportunities to practise and receive feedback in different contexts encourages peer learning, increases engagement and students’ desire to learn.