Abstract
Peer assessment and peer feedback are considered alternatives to teacher-based feedback and their effects on writing have been substantially researched. This study aims to examine the perspectives of a group of university students, who are mainly second language learners, on peer feedback in an English writing class. Many of the studies conducted on the perspectives of students regarding peer feedback provided conflicting findings. While some found that peer feedback was viewed with doubt and encouraged little revision, others found it helped learners to recognise their strengths and flaws in writing. This study aims to better understand students’ perspectives regarding peer feedback and to identify the concerns raised by students involved in the study. The findings from this study revealed that the participants of the study had a positive perspective on the use of peer feedback and on the use of an online peer feedback tool. The study also showed that past experience did not contribute towards a negative perspective of peer feedback among the participants. The findings from this study are useful for future research in designing a better peer feedback process and improve its implementation.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Biggs, J. (1999). Teaching for quality learning at university, 1st Ed. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press.
Ballantyne, R., Hughes, K., & Mylonas, A. (2002). Developing procedures for implementing peer assessment in large classes using an action research Process. Feedback & Evaluation in Higher Education, 27(5), 427–441.
Bloxham, S. & West, A. (2004). Understanding the rules of the game: Marking peer assessment as a medium for developing students’ conceptions of assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 29(6), 721–733.
Brindley, C. & Scoffield, S. (1998). Peer assessment in undergraduate programs. Teaching in Higher Education, 3(1), 79–89.
Brown, S., Rust, C. & Gibbs, G. (1994). Strategies for diversifying assessment in higher education. Oxford, UK: Oxford Centre for Staff Development.
Chaudron, C. (1984). The effects of feedback on students’ composition revisions. RELC Journal, 15(1), 1–14.
Cheng, W. & Warren, M. (1997). Having second thoughts: student perceptions before and after a peer assessment exercise. Studies in Higher Education, 22(2), 233–239.
Creswell, J. W. (1999). Mixed-method research: Introduction and application. In G. Cizek (Ed.), Handbook of educational policy (pp. 455 - 472). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Falchikov, N. (1995). Peer feedback marking: developing peer assessment. Innovations in Education and Training International, 32(2), 175–187.
Falchikov, N. (2001). Learning together: peer tutoring in higher education. London: Routledge Falmer.
Gatfield, T. (1999). Examining student satisfaction with group projects and peer assessment. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 24(4), 365–377.
Li, L. & Steckelberg, A. L. (2006). Perspectives of web-mediated peer assessment. Academic Exchange Quarterly, 10(2), 265–270.
Liu, E. Z. F., Chiu, C. H., Lin, S. S. J., & Yuan, S. M. (1999). Student participation in computer science courses via the Networked Peer Feedback System (NetPeas). Proceedings of the ICCE’99, 1, 774–777.
Liu, N.-F. & Carless, D. (2006). Peer feedback: The learning element of peer assessment. Teaching in Higher Education, 11(3), 279–290.
Lopez-Real, F. & Chan, Y.P. R. (1999). Peer assessment of a group project in a primary mathematics education course. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 24(1), 67–79.
McDowell, L. (1995). The impact of innovative assessment on student learning. Innovation in Education and Training International, 32(4), 302–313.
Searby, M. & Ewers, T. (1997). An evaluation of the use of peer assessment in higher education: A case study in the School of Music, Kingston University. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 22(4), 371–383.
Smith, H., Cooper, A. & Lancaster, L. (2002). Improving the quality of undergraduate peer assessment: a case for student and staff development. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 39(1), 71–81.
Stefani, A. J. (1994). Peer, self and tutor assessment: relative reliabilities. Studies in Higher Education, 19(1), 69–75.
Topping, K. J. (1998). Peer assessment between students in colleges and universities. Review of Educational Research, 68(3), 249–276.
Topping, K. J., Smith, E. F., Swanson, I., & Elliot, A. (2000). Formative peer assessment of academic writing between postgraduate students. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 25(2), 146–169.
Warkentin, R.W., Griffin, M.M., Quinn, G.P., & Griffin, B.W. (1995). An exploration of the effects of cooperative feedback on student knowledge structure. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
Wen, M. L. & Tsai, C. (2006). University students’ perspectives of and attitudes toward (online) peer assessment. Higher Education, 51(1), 27–44.
Williams, E. (1992) Student attitudes towards approaches to learning and assessment. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 17(1), 45–58.
Zhang, S. (1995). Re-examining the affective advantage of peer feedback in the ESL writing class. Journal of Second Language Writing, 4(3), 209–222.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
JIRE is a publication of the Centre for Research in Education & Instructional Technologies, School of Education, Taylor’s University Sdn Bhd
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Sukumaran, K., Dass, R. Students’ Perspectives on the Use of Peer Feedback in an English as a Second Language Writing Class. J Interdiscip Res Educ 4, 3 (2014). https://doi.org/10.7603/s40933-014-0003-3
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7603/s40933-014-0003-3