Student Experience of Peer Assessment on an MSc Programme

Figures & data

Figure 1 Overview of the ‘Case Investigations’ and peer assessment. This component represents 30 of the 180 credits required for the MSc in Medical Genetics. Students are given extensive guidance before undertaking three case studies (each lasting two weeks) and producing reports of ~ 50 pages. The grades for these reports are divided amongst the students in the group, weighted by peer assessment that students undertake on each other. It is the students’ experience of the peer assessment part of the process that is addressed in this study.

Table 1 Example of peer marking

		Marks awarded to:		Average
A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
Marks from:	A	18	16.25	17.25	13.25	10.75	15.75	18.25	17.75	15.9
B	17.75	17.25	16.25	9.75	9	14.25	18	17	14.9
C	19.5	18.75	19.25	15.75	16.5	18.25	20.5	19.25	18.5
D	17.75	15.5	17.25	16.5	12.5	15	18	16.5	16.1
E	19.75	12^†	14.5	11.5	12	13	15	18	14.5
F	18.5	16.75	17	13.75	13.5	15.75	18.25	17.75	16.4
G	19.75	17	17	10.5	11.25	14.5	21.25	20.5	16.5
H	18.5	17	16.75	12.25	12	15.75	18.25	17.5	16.0
Average		18.8	16.2	16.6	12.4	12.2	15.2	18.1	18.1	15.9
Adjusted		19.9	17.3	17.7	13.5	13.3	16.3	19.2	19.2	17.0

Note: Each student awards grades to their peers under four categories on a 22 point scale. They also grade their own performance. The average of the peer marks for each student (disregarding the mark they gave themselves) is calculated. Since the average of these combined peer marks is 15.9 (1.1 marks lower than the staff grade for the three written reports, which was 17.0), each student’s grade is adjusted by 1.1 so that the marks awarded by students reflect the overall grade awarded by staff for the group. Self-marks are not used in the analysis.

† Where marks are significantly different from the other peer marks this is noted and may be taken into account at the examiners meeting if a students grade is at a borderline.

Figure 2 Responses to ‘Experience of Peer Assessment’ Questionnaire. Overall responses are shown for the questions: (A) Did you feel you received adequate instruction on how to review your peers?; (B) How ‘fair’ do you think peer assessment is?; (C) Would you recommend this type of assessment to a lecturer who was planning a new MSc?; (D) How useful do you think the skill of peer assessment will be to you in your future career?

Table 2 Perception of peer assessment according to first language, fee status and first degree.

	First Language		Fee status		First Degree
English	Other	UK	EU	OS	BSc	MBChB
Understanding?	3.2	3.5	3.4	3.0	3.5	3.3	3.6
p = 0.31 (MW)	p = 0.20 (KW)	p = 0.31 (MW)
Fairness?	3.6	3.2	3.4	3.0	3.3	3.2	3.6
p = 0.83 (MW)	p = 0.30 (KW)	p = 0.83 (MW)
Recommend?	3.6	3.7	3.7	5.0	3.3	3.5	4.0
p = 0.57 (MW)	p = 0.46 (KW)	p = 0.81 (MW)
Usefulness?	4.5	4.0	4.2	5.0	4.5	4.3	4.2
p = 0.37 (MW)	p = 0.67 (KW)	p = 0.37 (MW)

Note: Figures represent mean scores of answers where 1 was a very negative response, 3 was neutral and 5 was very positive; the four questions related to how well students understood the peer assessment process, how fair they thought peer assessment was, whether they would recommend peer assessment, and whether they thought that peer assessment was a useful skill to learn. Non-parametric tests (KW = Kruskal–Wallis analysis and MW = Mann–Whitney analysis) were used for comparison between groups. UK: United Kingdom; EU: European Union; OS: overseas.

Figure 3 Responses to questionnaire grouped according to performance in A: Case Investigations and B: the overall MSc. Figures represent mean scores of answers where 1 was a very negative response, 3 was neutral and 5 was very positive; the four questions related to how well students understood the peer assessment process, how fair they thought peer assessment was, whether they would recommend peer assessment, and whether they thought that peer assessment was a useful skill to learn. Correlation coefficients (R values) show the strength of the correlation between the quartile the student was in and the response to the question (R values in the range 0–0.5 are weak correlations while values of between 0.5–1 demonstrate a stronger relationship between answers to the questions and quartile. Negative R values demonstrate a negative relationship between answers to the questions and quartile). p-Values show the significance of this correlation.

Table 3 Thematic analysis of free text responses on the subject of student experience of peer assessment

Expectations and understanding	Apprehension about the process:‘A little sceptical about fairness’ ‘Would be difficult to get a fair assessment of a person’s ability from peer assessment – personality conflicts and issues may get in the way’ ‘I thought I cannot say bad things about other people’; it was ‘a different idea … new way of grading our work’	Positive attitudes to the idea despite having no prior exposure: ‘I thought it would be interesting and different from what I am used to’ ‘I felt it to be an effective way of gauging my performance’	Confusion about the process: ‘At first I was a bit confused as it was new to me but then when it was worked out in the mock investigation it became clear’ ‘I understood what I had to do but was confused about the marking system’	Adequacy of instruction: ‘We were provided with all the information required and even practice examples’ ‘Was not sure others read the instructions properly’
Positive and negative aspects of being the reviewer	Empowerment: ‘I was able to voice my opinions about other members of my group, whether praising or being critical’ ‘I got the chance to assess my peers and express my opinion on the group work, that most times would not be taken into account’	Development of skills: ‘I learnt a lot on how to grade an individual taking into account various factors into consideration’ ‘I learned how to criticise people to help them improve their performance’	Difficulty in giving constructive criticism: ‘Sometimes it was hard to comment about the drawbacks of others as we are not too sure if that is harsh or not’ ‘I needed to fully analyse their performance and think about them in depth before. That was an interesting challenge’	Insecurities about marking: ‘Sometimes they mark based on relationships and not the actual work’ ‘Marking was based on a popularity contest’
Staff versus students as reviewers	Students clearer understanding: ‘Fellow students can recognise traits that are missed by staff as the staff might not understand fully the background psychological games’ ‘Genuine feedback on working with people in a group especially as the contact with the group was greater than the contact with staff’ ‘Other students realised how much work was involved’	Insecurities about peer assessment: ‘I prefer the impartiality of staff marking’ ‘Group work is great but when it comes to marks, the ugly side of humans emerges’ ‘Peer review is very effective if done constructively and as objectively as possible, however I’m not entirely convinced that this can always be the case’	Insecurities about peer assessment (cont): ‘I do not like to depend on my peers to determine my grades. It feels unsafe to have my fate lying in the hands of peers’ ‘The people who were not pleased with my behaviour can reduce my marks’ ‘Personally I don’t want to peer review students or to receive it from them. I will anyway do it in job environment. In the course I just want to get knowledge without wasting my nerves’	Appreciation of critical review: ‘When given a good grade it was nice to know my peers appreciated my effort and felt that I was a valuable group member’ ‘Really helped me understand how people perceived me and my work – this was useful in learning how to work better in a team’ ‘I was not quite satisfied about the negative aspects that were said as I wanted … to be more detail so that it would allow me to improve better’ ‘a great way to know yourself better’
Future usefulness	Preferences for being assessed: ‘I would like to be assessed by people with whom I work with and those that see you working’ ‘… by people who know the field better than me, in this case by our teachers’	Why peer assessment is useful: ‘Important to have a realistic opinion of yourself and how you function with others in a working environment’	Skill Development: ‘In future whether a job or PhD, working in a group is what happens. So peer review helped me to interact with people and improved my communication skills’	‘Soft Skills: Patience, effective communication skills, team work (as no man can do all things by himself) and the level of my emotional quotient has levelled up. Critical thinking and feedback skills’ ‘Learned teamwork, trust’

Note: Student comments were grouped into the themes of ‘Expectations and understanding’, ‘Positive and negative aspects of being the reviewer’, ‘Staff versus students as reviewers’ and ‘Future usefulness’. The comments in the table are representative of the range of views expressed.