Peer assessment

Peer assessment

While you, as the examiner, can judge the quality of the group product, you are unlikely to be able to accurately judge the individual contributions made or to adequately assess the group process itself. In this situation it is the students themselves who are in the best position to appraise the relative contributions of individual team members to the group work they have undertaken together. There are a range of peer assessment models that serve to allocate different marks to group members to reflect their relative contribution.

Involving students in the assessment process also gives them the opportunity to develop self-assessment skills. All students need to develop the ability to monitor and make judgements about their own performance. Our graduates need to think critically about what they are learning, to identify appropriate standards to apply to their work and to make judgements about the extent to which they have met these criteria.

Students will need some guidance when they first become involved in assessing themselves or their peers. It is important that all students clearly understand the criteria that will be used and the best way to ensure this is to involve the students in negotiating the criteria themselves. Part of the learning in this process also comes from understanding how to give and receive feedback.

Research shows that students become better at peer assessment as they gain experience with critical evaluation (Williams, 1992; Freeman, 1995). This is also backed by the personal experience of several Lincoln teachers:

Chris Kissling (Transport Studies) involves his students in negotiation of the criteria to be used for assessing group presentations. Students then practice applying these criteria to demonstration presentations before presenting their own work for final assessment.

Gary Steel (Psychology) found that his students had some difficulty when asked to assess their peers’ group presentations. He tightened up the criteria that were being used and now also includes an earlier session on what assessment is all about to guide them in their initial efforts.

And does it work? The social dynamic of small groups often works against honesty when things are not going so well. Students may feel uncomfortable since they see it as "criticising their friends". For this reason it is important to make it clear that you expect thoughtful, truthful answers and that the process is conducted in the utmost confidentiality.

The bottom line is that by engaging in peer assessment you are not totally surrendering your position as examiner and therefore final judge of a student’s grade. When all the marks have been combined, and it just remains to actually assign a grade, you should not feel compelled to view the total as ‘set in stone’. It is perfectly acceptable for teachers to exercise professional judgement and make discretionary adjustments at the final stage (Crooks, 1988). It is wise, however, to be prepared to rationally justify your decisions.

NOTE: TLS holds a collection of resources that may also be useful to you, including one that looks at good practice using peer assessment in particular (Peer Assessment in Practice, Brown, 1998). To borrow this resource, contact TLS