Self and Peer Assessment

When is it useful to do peer or self-assessment?

when doing formative and summative assessments, early and during the course of learning

What benefits are gained from doing peer or self-assessment?

Peer assessment: engages students in the learning process and develops their capacity to reflect on and evaluate their own learning and skill development, promote and provide evidence of the development of generic skills and attributes, has an acceptably high level of validity and reliability, usually a positive experience for students, promotes a sense of fairness, students can become more active agents in assessment procedures

Self- Assessment: helping develop important meta-cognitive skills, increasing their self-awareness, contributing to the development of critical reviewing skills, helping students take control of their own learning and assessment, giving students greater agency regarding assessment, reducing the teacher’s assessment workload

What are the challenges in peer or self-assessment?

Peer assessment: students may undervalue its significance for their learning and avoid seriously engaging with it, it can raise social tensions and issues of loyalty, don’t think they have the expertise, peers can produce ratings based on uniformity, race and friendship; peers tend to award higher marks than do tutors; it can undermine the spirit of collaboration fostered by group work

Self-Assessment: lower performing and less experienced students tend to overestimate their achievements; students may resist self-assessment; issues can arise if students’ self-assessments are not consistent with peer or staff assessments

What are some peer or self-assessment strategies?

Peer assessment: make the purpose very clear to students; activities are supported by detailed and explicit criteria and standards in the form of a rubric; develop students’ peer assessing skills; make the peer assessment process anonymous

Self-assessment: reflective journals; self-assessment prompts for students. in group work and class participation