What is peer review?
Peer assessment is the practice of having a student assessed by one or more other students. It can be used in a wide variety of situations to meet different objectives. For example, this method will give rise to feedback; this performance feedback can either focus on the result of the work, or on the work processes (Elliott, 20051). In both cases, peer evaluation offers numerous advantages. This article summarizes the scientific literature on the subject.
The pedagogical advantages of the method
Involves students in the evaluation process
Students are assessed from kindergarten right through to the end of their higher education. For them, this is a logical process in which they are passive, as it enables them to validate their learning or not. With peer assessment, the student becomes active in the process and takes ownership of it (Brindley & Scoffield, 19982). In this way, assessment becomes a formative element, providing an opportunity to improve on mistakes rather than a punishment for failure. What's more, by judging the work of others, students gain an insight into their own performance through that of their peers. This enables them to understand - or better understand - their mistakes (Brown, Rust & Gibbs, 19943; Zariski, 19964; Race, 19985).
Generate lots of feedback
Questioning student passivity in the assessment process brings us back to a central point: the purpose of an assessment. Assessment can be summative, in order to generate a grade, or formative. In either case, the aim is to generate feedback on a student's production, in order to help him or her progress. However, in the university world, assessment is mainly used for certification purposes, to validate a UE or a diploma. Obviously, the problem lies in the lack of time on the part of teachers, or the sheer number of students involved. But with peer assessment, we transform the evaluation process into a method that generates a large amount of feedback, and we know that the use of feedback is the pedagogical method that leads to the most progress in students (Hattie, 19876).
Proving the legitimacy of student assessment
This raises the question of the legitimacy of students' ability to produce feedback. But in reality, students can provide feedback that is just as qualitative and quantitative as that provided by the experts - the professors - and, since they use simpler jargon, closer to the familiar and usual language, their feedback even facilitates comprehension (Cho, 20067; Cho, 20088; Cho, 20109). Involving students in the pedagogical process also counteracts the "curse of expertise", i.e. the difficulty experts may have in explaining processes and mechanisms that have become trivial and automatic for them (Camerer, 198910). Beyond feedback, if students are asked to produce a grade as part of the evaluation process, it will be strongly correlated with the grade a teacher would have given. Proving the validity of student-generated evaluations (Falchikov, 200011; Freeman, 199512; Orsmond, 199613).
Skills development
To verify these effects, we can look at the impact of peer assessment on student performance. Peer assessment not only makes learning more sustainable over time, but also increases overall academic performance (Double, 202014; Relatedly & Vickermann, 200915). But it also helps to develop numerous skills. The combined action of evaluative judgment and the production of feedback - typical of peer assessment - enables the method to develop autonomy, confidence in one's abilities, collaboration, communication, team spirit, critical thinking, reflexivity and the ability to learn how to learn (Reinholz, 2016 16; Slavin, 1990 17; Relatedly & Vickermann, 200915). In other words, skills that are all the more important as they are close to the world of work, enabling students trained using peer assessment to be more ready, trained, for the world of work (Boud & Soler, 2016 18; Weaver & Esposto, 2012 19; Kearney, 201320). These skills are what we call soft-skills, i.e. skills focused on attitudes, which are developed all the more when "intra-group" peer assessments are carried out, focusing on work processes and attitudes within groups (Kennedy, 2006 21; Conway, 199322). Intra-group evaluation also has the advantage of reducing the number of free-riders - students who let themselves be carried along and benefit from the work of others in group projects - (Conway, 1993 22; Kench, 200923).
Increased commitment
On the student side, the method is also generally perceived as pedagogically relevant and satisfying, which increases student commitment to the assignments (Elliott, 2005 1; Relatedly & Vickermann, 200915). Finally, peer evaluation fits perfectly into strategies for triangulating methods - a pedagogical program comprising several methods that enrich each other - (Topping, 2003 24; Cho & MacArthur, 20109).
Points to bear in mind
There are several points to bear in mind when applying the method, so that students can benefit fully from these advantages.
Authenticity
Assessments should be realistic and based on students' knowledge and skills.
Transparency
Establish clear and explicit evaluation processes for all participants. It's important that evaluation criteria be mastered by the students, and that they be involved in the process of creating the criteria.
Fairness
Each student must be able to demonstrate his or her skills and knowledge. Therefore, let them be trained and prepared for the exercise so that they can all participate in the process with the same knowledge base.
Training
Using the method on a regular basis enhances students' expertise in peer assessment.
Bibliography :
1 Elliot, N. and Higgins, A. (2005). Self and peer assessment - does it make a difference to student group work? Nurse Education in Practice, 5(1), 40-48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2004.03.004
2 Brindley, C., and S. Scoffield. 1998. "Peer Assessment in Undergraduate Programmes." Teaching in Higher Education 3 (1): 79-90.
Baartman, L. K. J. (April 24, 2008). Assessing the assessment; development and use of quality criteria for competence assessment programmes. Doctoral dissertation. Utrecht, The Netherlands: University of Utrecht.
5 Race, P. 1995 The Art of Assessing, New Academic, Autumn 1995, 3-5 and Spring 1996, 3-6 and in DeLiberations http://www.lgu.ac.uk/deliberations/assessment/artof_fr.html
6 HATTIE, J.A. (1987) Identifying the salient facets of a model of student learning: a synthesis of meta-analyses, International Journal of Educational Research, vol. 11, pp. 187212.
7 Cho, K., Schunn, C. D., & Wilson, R. (2006). Validity and reliability of scaffolded peer assessment of writing from instructor and student perspectives. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 891e901
8 Cho, K., Chung, T. R., King, W. R., & Schunn, C. D. (2008). Peer-based computer-supported knowledge refinement: an empirical investigation. Communications of the ACM, 51(3), 83e88.
9 Cho, K., & MacArthur, C. (2010). Student revision with peer and expert reviewing. Learning and instruction, 20(4), 328-338.
10 Camerer, C., Loewenstein, G., & Weber, M. (1989). The curse of knowledge in economic settings: an experimental analysis. The Journal of Political Economy, 97, 1232e1254.
11 Falchikov, N., & Goldfinch, J. (2000). Student peer assessment in higher education: A meta-analysis comparing peer and teacher marks. Review of educational research, 70(3), 287-322.
12 Freeman, M. (1995). Peer Assessment by Groups of Group Work. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 20(3), 289-300. doi:10.1080/0260293950200305
13 Orsmond, P., Merry, S., & Reiling, K. (1996). The Importance of Marking Criteria in the Use of Peer Assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 21(3), 239-250. doi:10.1080/0260293960210304
14 Double, K. S., McGrane, J. A., & Hopfenbeck, T. N. (2020). The impact of peer assessment on academic performance: A meta-analysis of control group studies.
15 Vickerman, P. (2009). Student perspectives on formative peer assessment: an attempt to deepen learning? Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 34(2), 221-230. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602930801955986
16 Reinholz, D. 2016. "The Assessment Cycle: A Model for Learning Through Peer Assessment." Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 41 (2): 301-315.
17 SLAVIN, R. E. (1995) Cooperative Learning (Boston, Allyn and Bacon)
21 Kennedy, G. J. (2005, January). Peer-assessment in group projects: is it worth it? In Proceedings of the 7th Australasian conference on Computing education-Volume 42 (pp. 59-65).
