Loss aversion as a motivator for engagement with peer assessment

ABSTRACT

Loss aversion has been shown to influence decision making in a host of social and economic contexts. This paper presents a novel assessment strategy that seeks to address issues of student engagement and academic integrity through the combination of the concepts of loss aversion and peer-assessment. Students faced the possibility of losing a small number of the marks they had previously ‘earned’ in a task in which they were required to accurately grade a peer’s work. A detailed rubric was designed to support students grading the work. Based on data collected via a survey and interviews, we show that students, despite disliking this assessment strategy, were more engaged in the assessment and felt that their critical thinking skills were enhanced as a result of this approach. The implications from this study includes the need for detailed guidance for students through, for example, rubrics, lecturer accessibility and exemplars.

KEYWORDS:

• Peer assessment
• loss aversion
• rubrics
• virtual learning environment (VLE)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Gillanders

Dr Robert Gillanders is an Assistant Prof. of Economics at Dublin City University Business School. His main research interest is corruption, but he is also interested in issues relating to regulation, gender, FDI, and institutions/governance in general.

Shadi Karazi

Dr Shadi Karazi is a lecturer, researcher and learning technologist at Dublin City University. He has extensive expertise in supporting individuals, and programme teams with the implementation of appropriate technological solutions to specific learning challenges.

Fiona O’Riordan

Dr Fiona O’Riordan is an Academic Developer in the Teaching Enhancement Unit at Dublin City University (DCU). Her areas of research include curriculum development, assessment, academic integrity and academic professional development.