Peer review of teaching embedded practice or policy‐holding complacency?

Abstract

Peer review of teaching (PRT) depicts as many different definitions, processes, rationale and underpinning values as there are participating individuals. This paper reports the activities of one academic department who were forced to address the issues of perceived clarity, value and ownership when faced with an unexpectedly low completion rate in one academic cycle. A novel data collection event mapped departmental perception of existing and ‘utopian’ PRT processes. Affective descriptors were an important component of the data. The results were used to develop an approach owned by the individual and better suited to the specific culture, needs, values and staff of the department.

Keywords:

• peer assisted reflection
• continuing professional development
• policy to practice

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Tony Everett and Dawn Pickering for their help, advice and support with the data analysis. This study formed the substance of an oral presentation to the British Educational Research Association annual conference, Glamorgan, 14–17 September 2005.