por The peer review It is an educational activity in which students judge the performance of their peers on an equal basis. It can take different forms depending on the characteristics of the way it is implemented, who the students are, and what the educational context is.
Co-evaluation is one of the three great results measurement systems used both in the educational context and in other areas. The other two are self-evaluation and hetero-evaluation or external evaluation. Each of them has a series of advantages and disadvantages, and they are more suitable for certain situations.
Peer-assessment can also vary greatly depending on whether it is used for summative purposes (i.e., to deliver a grade, as occurs when a test is marked by a peer), or for purely informational purposes, such as on occasions when Several students give feedback to one of them about their performance.
Peer assessment, despite having appeared recently, has been shown to have very positive effects on students’ ability to achieve. In addition, some research also suggests that it could improve students’ self-regulation, motivation, and interpersonal skills.
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Features, advantages and disadvantages
Despite the fact that it is a relatively recent technique, peer evaluation has been widely developed since it began to be implemented in the educational field.
In recent decades, this evaluation method has experienced a great expansion, so today it can be applied in many different ways.
For example, the peer assessment can be used simply for informational purposes, applying it in such a way that the results of the process do not influence the final grade of the students; but it can also happen the other way around, using this process as one of the main methods of assigning a grade to students.
In addition to this, peer assessment methods differ in many aspects, such as whether or not they are anonymous, or whether each student’s work is reviewed individually, in pairs or in groups.
However, all the forms that this approach takes have a number of characteristics in common, which we will see below.
Save time for the teacher
One of the main disadvantages of external evaluation is that a single person or a small group of them have to mark the work of a larger group.
This causes an effect known as a “bottleneck”, which means that the evaluation process can take a long time and require high levels of effort.
In fact, in certain fields where the number of students far exceeds the number of examiners, performance evaluation can be extremely expensive. This can happen, for example, in processes such as oppositions, entrance exams to different educational centers, or some universities.
Despite the fact that it is not generally applicable in all these situations, peer assessment could alleviate this problem to a certain extent, since it allows a significant saving of time in the process of grading the student’s work.
increases learning
During an external evaluation procedure, students hardly receive information that allows them to learn from their mistakes or discover something new. Generally, the teacher is limited to giving them the correction of their exams, papers or homework, in such a way that the feedback they get is very little.
On the contrary, in a peer-assessment process, students are actively participating in the correction, which allows them to become familiar with the most common errors that other people similar to them make.
This can help them improve their own process of acquiring knowledge, through what is known as vicarious learning.
In addition to this, peer assessment also allows students to internalize what they have learned. A multitude of studies suggest that the fact of evaluating the work of other people or teaching others crystallizes the learning that we have already done, in such a way that they become deeper and less likely to be forgotten.
Not applicable in all situations
Despite all the advantages that peer-assessment processes may have, unfortunately it is not possible or desirable to apply them in all fields and educational contexts. In some of them, the quality of the students’ work needs to be judged by an expert, rather than by a peer.
This occurs, for example, when the subject is very complex and requires expert knowledge to be able to evaluate it; or when the evaluation process has to follow a certain series of steps with which the person in charge of the examination must be very familiar.
Students do it naturally
Finally, one of the most interesting advantages of peer evaluation is that it is a process that students already carry out spontaneously. In virtually all educational contexts, students or learners have been observed helping each other, evaluating each other, and giving each other advice on how they can improve.
In this way, if peer evaluation is implemented as one of the main methods of verifying the learning carried out by the students, the use of a skill already present in the students would be encouraged.
This could not only increase their motivation and involvement, but it would probably allow them to obtain very good results in the medium and long term.
Guys
There is no standardized classification of the different types of peer evaluation that exist. Even so, below we will see several criteria that can be used to divide the different versions that exist of this process.
Depending on the purpose
As we have already seen, one of the main differences that may exist between the different co-evaluation processes has to do with the result sought when applying them.
In some contexts, the peer assessment will be the only tool used to examine student work, while in others it will only serve to support some other process.
Thus, informative peer assessment can simply serve to improve student learning, broaden their skills and generate more motivation in them; but it will not take the burden off the educator, who will still have to correct the work of his students once this process is finished.
On the other hand, the “summative” peer evaluation implies that the final results of a test, exam or demonstration will be posted by the peers of the person being examined.
This has all the advantages that we have already mentioned, but it can also lead to errors in grades depending on variables such as the personal relationship of the students with each other.
anonymous vs. personal
Another of the most common classifications of the different peer-assessments that can be made is based on whether the person evaluated knows who has given them a specific rating or not. In the first case, subjective factors such as the relationship between the two people are more likely to come into play than in the second.
On the other hand, there are also some peer-assessment processes in which the examiner does not know whose work they are correcting. This can only happen in certain contexts, such as grading a test.
On some occasions, when neither the examiner nor the examinee know who the other is, there is talk of a «double blind» evaluation process.
Depending on the participants
The most basic form that peer assessment can take is two people exchanging their work and grading each other. However, this is not the only version of this process that exists.
For example, in some contexts it is also possible for several students to form a panel that will be in charge of judging the performance of their classmates. At other times, it could even be that a whole class or group had to decide the grade that is going to be given to each of its members.
The dynamics that occur in each of these cases are very different, so each one of them is more suitable for a series of particular contexts.
Instruments
The instruments that will be used in each peer-assessment process will depend to a large extent on the context in which the students are moving and the type of knowledge or skill that is going to be examined. Therefore, it is very difficult to make an exhaustive list of all the tools that could be used in this area.
However, every time a co-evaluation process is carried out, it will be necessary to create together with the students a list of evaluation criteria that will be used during it.
This will allow them to know what specifically to look for in order to examine the activity of their peers, and to focus their attention more effectively.
Example
One of the simplest forms of peer evaluation could occur when students have had to carry out a series of exercises to apply the knowledge acquired in class.
In this context, the teacher could ask the students to exchange their results in pairs and compare them, trying to detect the mistakes they have made and where they have gone wrong.
The educator could then share the correct answer, then ask students to compare their classmates’ work with it and give it a grade.
References
“Peer assessment”in: University of Reading. Retrieved on: June 04, 2019 from University of Reading: reading.ac.uk.
“Student peer assessment” in: UNSW Sydney. Retrieved on: June 04, 2019 from UNSW Sydney: unsw.edu.au.
“Peer assessment”in: Newcastle University. Retrieved on: June 04, 2019 from Newcastle University: ncl.ac.uk.
“Peer assessment”in: Stanford University. Retrieved on: June 4, 2019 from Stanford University: teachingcommons.stanford.edu.
«Peer assessment» in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: June 04, 2019 from Wikipedia: es.wikipedia.org.