Implementing a Peer Feedback Intervention within a Community of Practice Framework

ABSTRACT

The study reported used a Community of Practice (CoP) framework to implement a content-based peer feedback intervention. The goal of this work was to investigate the contribution of the peer feedback intervention influence on improving the writing skills of forty-six community college students in four classes; three classes received the peer feedback intervention and one class received a business as usual revision workshop. Specifically, this work investigated the impact of revision from students’ drafts to final writing piece, the types of revisions that students made as result of giving and receiving feedback, and the perceptions reported by students around the helpfulness of the peer feedback. The study utilized assignment rubrics, a student reflective questionnaire, and a peer feedback comment form to evaluate the impact of the peer feedback intervention. To examine change in the students’ final draft scores compared to their first draft scores, two individual raters were trained and scored each paper. A t-test was conducted to compare the pre-test and post-test drafts. In all three sections of the peer feedback treatment group, the post-test scores were higher than pre-test scores. In the control group, there was no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores. In addition, students reported both giving and receiving peer feedback as helpful and providing feed for a peer influenced the revision process.