Designing and Implementing Self and Peer Assessment/Evaluation/Feedback

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Designing and Implementing Self and Peer Assessment/Evaluation/Feedback

Why design and implement self and peer assessment?

Falchikov (2007: 139) outlines a useful set of features where peer (and self) involvement in assessment is considered beneficial. These features:

Are designed to enhance learning;
Require learners to take responsibility for their actions;
Encourage a reflective approach to learning;
Require students to identify and apply standards and criteria;
Provide some degree of modelling and/or scaffolding;
Involve learners in judging their performance or that of their peers – developing and using Sadler’s (1989 and 2005) evaluative expertise, providing, seeking and utilising feedback;
Allow learners to practise peer and self-assessment skills in a variety of contexts;
Allow fading of support so that learners may move nearer towards assessment autonomy.

Checklist for designing and implementing self/peer assessment

Once you have decided that your students and unit could benefit from having self and peer assessment tasks/activities, you might find the below list of questions helpful in designing and implementing your task. By answering these questions, you will have designed a plan to implement self and peer assessment task.

For example, the following assessment task (described in grey below) is a team based activity where groups of five students are undertaking a project for which they will generate a report and deliver a presentation:

# / Questions / Options / Your reasons why and Actions
1 / Is the task self- or peer- assessment or both? And why? /

Self-
Peer-
Both

/ Both. Because both self and peer assessment allow students to critically analyse the standards and evaluate themselves and others fairly and accurately. Then students can compare their own ratings/feedback with peers.
2 / Is the task aligned well with the intended learning outcomes? /

Deakin Graduate Learning Outcome (GLO)
Course Learning Outcome (CLO)
Unit Learning Outcome (ULO)

/ Yes, I have GLO7 team work aligned with one of my ULOs, therefore peer assessment is a good way to address this.
3 / Is the task formative or summative assessment? /

Formative
Summative

/ Formative.
4 / Is this task an individual task or team/group task? /

Individual
Team/group

/ This assessment involves team work work because students have to work collaboratively to achieve one mutual goal/task (i.e. project execution report and presentation)
5 / What type of work is being evaluated? /

Written work
Team/group work process/skills
Team/group work product

/ The evaluation of the process/skills of conducting team work.
6 / Does the task require students to evaluate the KNOWLEDGE of team/group work? or the SKILLS of team/group work?
*Note that team/group work SKILLS can only be assessed by people involved in that team/group work (often students themselves). /

Knowledge
Skills

/ Actual skills of applying team work principles.
7 / What type of feedback will students give and receive? /

Qualitative (e.g. comments)
Quantitate (e.g. rating, marks)

/ Both qualitative and quantitative, but none of it will influence their grades as this task is formative.
8 / What are the assessment criteria/rubrics? /

Feedback sheet (qualitative comments)
Rubric (holistic vs analytic)

/ The first draft I did is an analytic rubric with much room to encourage students to give qualitative feedback, but I am intending to involve students to scrutinise this rubric and construct a rubric together.
9 / Do I create the assessment criteria/rubrics or involve others (students or academic colleagues) to create them (together)? /

Students
Academics

/ Students are involved in contributing to create the rubric descriptors because I want them to critically analyse the standards better and learn how to create a fair standard for assessing their peers. I have organised a time to do this exercise with my students in a seminar.
10 / What is the proportion of marks given to students to be responsible? And why? / 0-100% / 0%. This self and peer assessment is only an opportunity for formative feedback and peer learning. Their marking does not count towards the final grades in my unit.
11 / Are the individual marks given as well as group marks to students? If so, how are they calculated? /

Individual marks
Group marks
Both

/ Individual marks are calculated based on the group marks I give – using SparkPlus. But they are given back to students only as formative feedback along with other qualitative feedback/comments.
12 / Are exemplars/examples of work provided? / high/mid/low quality of work samples / Students engage with three levels of sample work and practise marking against the rubric (high/mid/low quality of work)
13 / What skills/knowledge do students need in order to do self and peer assessment/evaluation? /

Critical thinking
Communication
Self-management
Team work

/ Students need high level critical thinking skills to understand the standards, apply them and make judgements about their own and their peers’ work. They also need the communication skills to effectively pass on the positive and constructive feedback to their peers.
14 / How am I going to facilitate students to learn about:
-the assessment design
-the rubric/assessment criteria/standards
-team/group work
-conflict resolutions among team members /

Lecture
Seminar
Tutorial
Handbooks/resources
Readings

/ One-hour seminar is allocated to talk about the assessment design, rubric, and principles of team work.
15 / Will students get feedback on the feedback/marking that they give? If so, how? How do students know that they did a good job of self and peer assessment? /

Feedback on students’ self and peer feedback
Comparison of their marking with their tutors/markers

/ Yes, in a one hour tutorial, students will be given feedback by their tutors about their peer feedback responses.
16 / What are students supposed to do with the given self/peer feedback? / Use the given feedback to improve their future work / Students are invited to improve their work based on the given feedback before the final submission.

Reference:

Falchikov, N. (2007). The place of peers in learning and assessment. In D. Boud & N. Falchikov (Eds.), Rethinking assessment in higher education: Learning for the longer term (pp. 128-143). London: Routledge.

Chie Adachi