Using PeerMark - guidance for staff
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"...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."
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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. |
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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
Make sure you click the 'Save & Continue' button to proceed to the next tab.
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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. | |||
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