Developing formative peer assessment in writing classes: focus on students’ perceptions

Abstract

The literature of higher education has shown that formative peer assessment (FPA) promotes students’ learning across disciplines (Topping, 1998, Lynch et al. 2012, Li et al. 2019, among others). Despite the solid reported benefits, studies on an effective implementation of FPA are still limited in the literature (Nicol, Thomson, and Breslin 2014, Wanner and Palmer, 2018). A debilitating factor includes students’ negative attitudes towards peer assessment (Kaufman and Schunn 2011). Focusing on students’ perceptions and experiences of FPA, this study attempts to describe how FPA can be implemented in a more effective manner in academic writing lessons for students of a preliminary course for engineering studies. More specifically, it inquires how the students’ attitudes towards FPA as a learning method change according to their experiences of it and to what extent students’ perceptions of FPA impact on their perceived learning effect. The result of the inquiry suggests, in line with the literature, that scepticism for students’ assessment ability is a cause for their negative attitudes towards FPA. The students need to be trained to provide quality feedback, and they also need to develop their understanding of assessment criteria in order to benefit from FPA.