Agreeableness and Conscientiousness as predictors of university students’ self/peer-assessment rating error

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an investigation into the role of two personality traits (i.e. Agreeableness and Conscientiousness from the Big Five personality traits) in predicting rating error in the self-assessment and peer-assessment of composition writing. The average self/peer-rating errors of 136 Iranian English major undergraduates assigned to two equal-sized groups, one doing self-assessment and the other peer-assessment over nine sessions, were correlated with and regressed against their measures of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. The results indicated that Agreeableness and Conscientiousness only explained 7% of the variation in self-rating error. Including both Agreeableness and Conscientiousness in a model to predict peer-rating error explained 16% of the variation. When Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were both included in a multiple regression analysis, only Agreeableness was found to significantly predict peer-rating error. Based on these findings, some conclusions are drawn, and pedagogical implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• agreeableness
• conscientiousness
• self/peer-assessment
• rating error

Notes on contributors

Parviz Birjandi is a full professor of TEFL and applied linguistics at Science and Research Branch of Islamic Azad University (SRBIAU) in Tehran, Iran. He received his M.A from Colorado State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in English Education. He has supervised numerous MA and Ph.D. theses and has taught different English language and applied linguistics courses at BA, MA and PhD for over 30 years. He has also published numerous national middle school, high school, and university textbooks and international articles. His major interests are language assessment, research methodology, and first language acquisition.

Masood Siyyari is an assistant professor of TEFL and applied linguistics at Science and Research Branch of Islamic Azad University in Tehran, Iran. He received his PhD in applied linguistics from Allameh Tabataba'i University in Tehran, Iran. Currently, he supervises MA theses and teaches graduate courses in applied linguistics and translation studies at SRBIAU. His main areas of research include language assessment and second language acquisition.