Peer assessment

Peer assessment, or self-assessment, is a process whereby students or their peers grade assignments or tests based on a teacher’s benchmarks. The practice is employed to save teachers time and improve students' understanding of course materials as well as improve their metacognitive skills. Rubrics are often used in conjunction with Self- and Peer-Assessment.

Employing self or peer assessment allows teachers to manage their time more effectively while having students grade each other’s papers results in a more efficient classroom setting.

Student grade assignments can save teacher’s time because an entire classroom can be graded together in the time that it would take a teacher to grade one paper. Moreover, rather than having a teacher rush through each paper, students are able to take their time to correct them. Students can spend more time on a paper because they only have to grade one and can therefore do a more thorough job.

Having students grade papers in class or assess their peers' oral presentations decreases the time taken for students to receive their feedback. Instead of them having to wait for feedback on their work, self- and peer-assessment allow assignments to be graded soon after completion. Students then don't have to wait until they have moved onto new material and the information is no longer fresh in their minds.

Teacher's evaluation role makes the students focus more on the grades not seeking feedback. Students can learn from grading the papers or assessing the oral presentations of others. Often, teachers do not go over test answers and give students the chance to learn what they did wrong. Self and peer assessment allow teachers to help students understand the mistakes that they have made. This will improve subsequent work and allow students time to digest information and may lead to better understanding. A study by Sadler and Good found that students who self-graded their tests did better on later tests. The students could see what they had done wrong and were able correct such errors in later assignments. After peer grading, students did not necessarily achieve higher results.

Through self- and peer-assessment students are able to see mistakes in their thinking and can correct any problems in future assignments. By grading papers, students are better able to understand the grading process and recognize their own strengths and weakness while learning how to think while completing assignments. Students also learn better strategies for taking tests. By grading assignments, students may learn how to complete assignments more accurately and how to improve their test results.

Professors Lin-Agler, Moore, and Zabrucky conducted an experiment in which they found “that students are able to use their previous experience from preparing for and taking a test to help them build a link between their study time allocation.” Students can not only improve their ability to study for a test after participating in self- and peer- assessment but also enhance their ability to evaluate others through improved metacognitive thinking.

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