Skip to main content

An Exploratory Study into Graduate Students’ Attitudes Towards Peer Assessment

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Educating Engineers for Future Industrial Revolutions (ICL 2020)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1329))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

In recent decades, many researchers have been working on the effectiveness of peer assessment in higher education. Being a useful teaching tool, peer assessment enables students to actively participate in learning and create a student-centered learning environment. Many studies focused on the influence of peer assessment on student learning, however, few studies have explored indicators that teachers can use to identify potential problems regarding students’ attitudes towards students’ feedback and peer review process. Thus, this is an exploratory study, trying to understand indicators for success and problems regarding students’ peer feedback process. We had 93 international students performing three peer-feedback assignments (each assignment of around 2000 words and each review of at least 250 words) on the topics of digital transformation, design thinking, and leadership in an Innovation and Entrepreneurship Basic course. For each of the tasks, students completed questionnaires about their attitudes towards peer assessment in general, providing peer assessment and the usefulness of the received peer assessment. We investigate the correlation between students’ performance, students’ assignment lengths, and students’ reviews lengths and attitude questionnaire items and we present the correlations we observed. These correlations can serve as first indicators to teachers to detect potential problems with peer assessment and get insights into student’s perceptions of the peer assessment process.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Cassidy, S.: Developing employability skills: peer assessment in higher education. Educ.+ Train. 48, 508–517 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Chen, I.C., Hwang, G.J., Lai, C.L., Wang, W.C.: From design to reflection: effects of peer-scoring and comments on students’ behavioral patterns and learning outcomes in musical theater performance. Comput. Educ. 150, 103856 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Cheng, W., Warren, M.: Having second thoughts: student perceptions before and after a peer assessment exercise. Stud. High. Educ. 22(2), 233–239 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Cho, K., Schunn, C.D., Wilson, R.W.: Validity and reliability of scaffolded peer assessment of writing from instructor and student perspectives. J. Educ. Psychol. 98(4), 891 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Dijks, M.A., Brummer, L., Kostons, D.: The anonymous reviewer: the relationship between perceived expertise and the perceptions of peer feedback in higher education. Assess. Eval. High. Educ. 43(8), 1258–1271 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Falchikov, N.: Peer feedback marking: developing peer assessment. Innov. Educ. Train. Int. 32(2), 175–187 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Gan, J.: The effects of prompts and explicit coaching on peer feedback quality. Ph.D. thesis, ResearchSpace@ Auckland (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  8. van Gennip, N.A., Segers, M.S., Tillema, H.H.: Peer assessment for learning from a social perspective: the influence of interpersonal variables and structural features. Educ. Res. Rev. 4(1), 41–54 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Gómez-Galán, J.: Media education in the ICT era: theoretical structure for innovative teaching styles. Information 11(5), 276 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Huisman, B., Saab, N., Van Driel, J., Van Den Broek, P.: Peer feedback on academic writing: undergraduate students’ peer feedback role, peer feedback perceptions and essay performance. Assess. Eval. High. Educ. 43(6), 955–968 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Huisman, B., Saab, N., Van Driel, J., Van Den Broek, P.: A questionnaire to assess students’ beliefs about peer-feedback. Innov. Educ. Teach. Int. 57, 1–11 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Ilgen, D.R., Fisher, C.D., Taylor, M.S.: Consequences of individual feedback on behavior in organizations. J. Appl. Psychol. 64(4), 349 (1979)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Kobrin, J.L., Deng, H., Shaw, E.J.: Does quantity equal quality? The relationship between length of response and scores on the sat essay. J. Appl. Test. Technol. 8(1), 1–16 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Li, H., Xiong, Y., Hunter, C.V., Guo, X., Tywoniw, R.: Does peer assessment promote student learning? A meta-analysis. Assess. Eval. High. Educ. 45(2), 193–211 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Lonka, K., Mikkonen, V.: Why does the length of an essay-type answer contribute to examination marks? Br. J. Educ. Psychol. 59(2), 220–231 (1989)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. McGarr, O., Clifford, A.M.: ‘Just enough to make you take it seriously’: exploring students’ attitudes towards peer assessment. High. Educ. 65(6), 677–693 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Nelson, M.M., Schunn, C.D.: The nature of feedback: how different types of peer feedback affect writing performance. Instr. Sci. 37(4), 375–401 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Nicol, D., Thomson, A., Breslin, C.: Rethinking feedback practices in higher education: a peer review perspective. Assess. Eval. High. Educ. 39(1), 102–122 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Pisoni, G.: Strategies for pan-European implementation of blended learning for innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) education. Educ. Sci. 9(2), 124 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Pisoni, G.: Lessons learned from implementing blended learning for classes of different size. In: Methodologies and Intelligent Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Pisoni, G., Gaio, L., Rossi, A.: Investigating soft skills development through peer reviews assessments in an entrepreneurship course. In: 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia (ISM), pp. 291–2915. IEEE (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Prins, F.J., Sluijsmans, D.M., Kirschner, P.A., Strijbos, J.W.: Formative peer assessment in a CSCL environment: a case study. Assess. Eval. High. Educ. 30(4), 417–444 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Ramon-Casas, M., Nuño, N., Pons, F., Cunillera, T.: The different impact of a structured peer-assessment task in relation to university undergraduates’ initial writing skills. Assess. Eval. High. Educ. 44(5), 653–663 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. van Rooyen, S., Black, N., Godlee, F.: Development of the review quality instrument (RQI) for assessing peer reviews of manuscripts. J. Clin. Epidemiol. 52(7), 625–629 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Roskams, T.: Chinese EFL students’ attitudes to peer feedback and peer assessment in an extended pairwork setting. RELC J. 30(1), 79–123 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Rotsaert, T., Panadero, E., Estrada, E., Schellens, T.: How do students perceive the educational value of peer assessment in relation to its social nature? A survey study in Flanders. Stud. Educ. Eval. 53, 29–40 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Strijbos, J.W., Narciss, S., Dünnebier, K.: Peer feedback content and sender’s competence level in academic writing revision tasks: are they critical for feedback perceptions and efficiency? Learn. Instr. 20(4), 291–303 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Sullivan, M.E., Hitchcock, M.A., Dunnington, G.L.: Peer and self assessment during problem-based tutorials. Am. J. Surg. 177(3), 266–269 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Tai, J.H., Haines, T.P., Canny, B.J., Molloy, E.K.: A study of medical students’ peer learning on clinical placements: what they have taught themselves to do. J. Peer Learn. 7(1), 57–80 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Tollefson, N., Tracy, D.: Test length and quality in grading of essay responses. Education 101(1), 63 (1980)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Topping, K.J., Smith, E.F., Swanson, I., Elliot, A.: Formative peer assessment of academic writing between postgraduate students. Assess. Eval. High. Educ. 25(2), 149–169 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge and thank the students involved in the peer review and subsequent survey task and the instructors who granted access to class activities, thus making this work possible.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hsin-Chueh Chen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Chen, HC., Pisoni, G., Gijlers, H. (2021). An Exploratory Study into Graduate Students’ Attitudes Towards Peer Assessment. In: Auer, M.E., Rüütmann, T. (eds) Educating Engineers for Future Industrial Revolutions. ICL 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1329. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68201-9_32

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics