Versions Compared

Old Version 23

changes.mady.by.user Martin Burrow

Saved on

compared with

New Version 24

changes.mady.by.user Martin Burrow

Saved on

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

Using PeerMark - guidance for staff

Contents

Table of Contents
minLevel2

...

"...that peer assessment involves students directly in learning, and should promote a sense of ownership, personal responsibility, and motivation. Teachers can also point out that peer assessment can increase variety and interest, activity and interactivity, identification and bonding, self-confidence, and empathy with others."

Info

Considerations

Won't students take each others' ideas? This is one reservation which is widely held by students. Richard Milne (UCL Centre for Virology) comments on his own experience of setting up peer review activities, "I wasn't worried about students stealing each others' ideas ... you discuss a subject with somebody else and then formulate your own way of thinking about it based on the conversation you’ve had". Students can be encouraged to credit each others' ideas (and a convention can be agreed for circumstances of anonymity).

Can students at any level of knowledge carry out good peer reviews? In their meta-analysis comparing validity of tutor and student assessments, Falchikov and Goldfinch (2009) could not find evidence that peer assessment in higher level courses was any more reliable (between different assessors) or valid (according to a standard) than at introductory levels. They speculate that careful preparation by tutors and students can compensate for subject knowledge of students at earlier stages of their course.


Can peer assessment work in every subject area? Although they found some differences, a meta-analysis of academic-peer agreement in marking by Falchikov and Goldfinch did not find that subject area had a significant effect on the quality of peer assessment. They also report that peer assessment of academic products (e.g. essays, posters) or processes (e.g. oral presentation skills, groupwork participation) have more validity than those in the context of professional practice (e.g. internships). This may be related to students' greater experience with academic products and processes. Their research also suggests that while students are equal to peer-assessment in one new discipline, requiring multi-disciplinary assessments is likely to reduce validity.

...

In the 'Peermark Assignment' tab of the PeerMark Manager you enter basic information about the activity.

Title

This will appear for students and should be distinctive and descriptive.

Point value (required)

The marks available for the peer review itself - i.e. not for the reviewed work. This reflects research findings that asking students to assign numeric marks to their peers exacerbates any sense of risk and brings undue complications and pressure to peer review without bringing any particular learning benefits.

Instructions to students

Brief guidance about what students should do and why.

Start date, Due date, Post date

 

Info
titleAdvice

Although ther is no linking between the Peermark dates and the 'parent' Turnitin assignment dates, ELE recommend that you set the start date of the Peermark Assignment AFTER the due date of the Turnitin assignment. This avoids the situation where a student can re-submit a paper that has alreadt received a peer review.

 

Make sure you click the 'Save & Continue' button to proceed to the next tab.


 

Info

Considerations

Instructions. Students tend to prefer tutor marking, and may assume that there is a correct mark for their work which is not open to interpretation (McConlogue, 2012). Most researchers into peer assessment (including Bloxham and West, 2007; McConologue, 2014; Nicol, 2010; Orsmond, 2004; Topping, 2009) stress the need to involve students in discussing - and ideally negotiating - the yardstick against which they will measure themselves and others, rather than relying on textual instructions alone. They recommend discussing the rationale, criteria and expectations for peer and/or self review before, during and after the activity. Discussing or negotiating expectations could clarify how much time students were expected to spend on each review and indicate how much feedback should be given, which will help even out the quality and quantity of peer feedback and avoid perceptions of unfairness (Cartney, 2010).

Dates.The fact that PeerMark is for formative feedback only raises possibilities for students reviewing draft work at an early relatively unpolished stage which remains open to rewriting on the basis of feedback (Colvill, 2010). In which case, set the Feedback Release Date to allow time for students to make changes in advance of their final credit-bearing submission. The time allowance for the PeerMark activity (i.e. between Start Date and Due Date) should reflect the time students are expected to spend, and allow for their other commitments.

 

 

...

On the 'Peermark Assignment' tab there is a link for additional settings. Here's some explanation for the less obvious ones.

'Award full points if review is written' 

If ticked this means tutors will not be able to mark the reviews and a student will need to meet set requirements for every part of the review in order to get the available marks, on an all-or-nothing basis. If unticked, tutors can assign and differentiate marks for each student's review. 

'Allow students to view author and reviewer names'

If left unticked, you probably need to remind students not to put any identifying information in the title, filename, or body of their work.

'Paper(s) automatically distributed by Peermark'

This sets the number of randomly allocated papers each student has to review.

'Papers(s) selected by the student'

This sets the number of papers a student can choose to review. Students can review a combination of allocated and selected papers.

'Require self-review'

If checked, a student has to review their own paper. It isn't currently possible to select self review only - the number allocated by PeerMark has to be at least one.

Info

Considerations

Award full points if the review is written. Where this all-or-nothing setting is deployed as an incentive to participate, keep in mind the importance of dialogue at all stages.

Allow students to view author and reviewer names. Setting the peer review to be anonymous will prevent friendship, enmity or power processes determining the review and forestall collusion. Clear criteria and an ethos which encourages mutual constructive criticism while discouraging platitudes are other measures to allay the social comfort students may feel about commenting on others' work. It may be necessary work out with students a convention for referencing each others' work in the absence of names, should they want to do so.

Allow submitters to read all papers after the Start Date. As well as allowing students to compare different work, this allows students to select work to review, if this has been enabled in the settings.

Allow students to read ALL papers and ALL reviews after the Feedback Release Date. Again, this communicates to students that they are welcome and encouraged to benchmark both their submissions and their reviews, and opens up the possibility of conversations which outlast the PeerMark activity.

Distribution of papers. Keep in mind boredom, tiredness and time pressures when deciding how many submissions each student should review. Falchikov and Goldfinch (2009) found that larger numbers of reviewers did not bring any validity gains and may reduce reliability due to the 'diffusion of responsibility effect' whereby students are less likely to perceive their own review as mattering. (Falchikov and Goldfinch were comparing peer and tutor marks rather than feedback, though).

Require self-review. Since one of the aims of peer-assessment is to help students use the criteria in their own work, self-review is likely to be a helpful exercise. However, it may pose a distinct idiosyncratic or cultural set of complications related to self-esteem, self-confidence, modesty, and how students habitually estimate their own ability (Saito and Fujita, 2004). For this reason PeerMark requires at least one peer review, whether or not there is a self review.

 

...