Peer Assessment
NEW: A vision for education and skills at Newcastle University: Education for Life 2030+
Peer Assessment
Peer assessment is students taking responsibility for assessing the work of their peers against defined assessment criteria.
- it can lead to feedback (peer review) and/or summative grades
- it can be used for individual work, contributions to group work, or group work outputs
- it can be anonymous, or not.
Why should I use peer assessment?
Phil Race has defined a number of reasons to use peer assessment:
- students will get the chance to find out more about assessment culture
- lecturers have less time to assess than before
- learning is enhanced when students have contributed to their marking criteria
- assessing is a good way to achieve deep learning
- students can learn from the successes of others
- students can learn from other's mistakes
Race, P. (2001). The Lecturer's Toolkit. London. Kogan Page, pp. 94-95.
Where can I use peer assessment?
Potentially anywhere... But wherever you use it you will need to consider the assessment carefully and possibly tweak it to make it fit well.
Peer assessment requires students to develop/have some skill in:
- evaluating their own performance
- identifying strengths, weaknesses and areas to improve
- comprehending the assessment criteria
Peer Review
While peer assessment involves students evaluating each other's work against defined criteria, peer review typically focuses on providing constructive feedback, often as part of a formative process to refine work before final submission.
It can also form a stage towards a summatively assessed piece of work.
In practice, peer review can be introduced in various stages of assessment, e.g.:
- Essay plan (formative) → Peer review and peer feedback → Final essay (summative) → instructor feedback
- Essay (formative) → Peer Review and peer feedback
Peer review is also a valuable way to help students engage more deeply with assessment criteria.
In group settings, peer review can help students reflect on their group processes and interpersonal attributes.
