Assessing postgraduate student perceptions and measures of learning in a peer review feedback process

Abstract

Peer review feedback, developed to assist students with increasing the quality of group reports and developing peer review skills, was added to a master’s level Climate Change Policy and Planning unit. A pre- and post-survey was conducted to determine whether students found the process a valuable learning opportunity: 87% of students responding to the post-review survey indicated they saw benefit in both developing and receiving peer review feedback. Peer review design minimising the potential for plagiarism resulted in low levels of student concern surrounding plagiarism. Marks allocated by students were valid (consistent with the lecturer) and were generally reliable; however, distribution of marks had a higher variance where group report quality was low. Training on completing the peer review template could result in more reliable feedback. Consistent with the literature, the feedback developed during the peer review process focused on style and presentation preferentially to content. Seven out of eight group reports improved between report submissions, with all groups responding to peer review feedback. Peer review feedback and changes made to group reports indicated students had limited capacity to judge the quality of referencing and critical analysis.

Keywords:

• peer feedback
• student perceptions
• validation and reliability

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University of Western Australia’s Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. The authors thank the 2014 Climate Change Policy and Planning students for their contribution to this work, and reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.