Peer feedback effects on the accuracy of peer assessment of ESL argumentative writing

Evaluative judgement, the ability to assess one’s work and others’, is crucial for students in their academic and professional journeys. However, current feedback and assessment practices have faced criticism for being unidirectional, overly focused on content and tasks, and passively involving students. To address these concerns, this study proposes reevaluating and redesigning assessment-related activities, especially in terms of the hybrid mode of peer feedback and peer assessment. Peer feedback is a qualitatively ungraded process providing comments and suggestions, and peer assessment primarily focuses on quantitatively assigning scores. While peer feedback’s relationship with writing performance has been widely studied, the impact of different roles (feedback providers and receivers) in peer feedback on learners’ evaluative judgement about argumentative writing has received little attention. Similarly, peer assessment accuracy in higher education is studied for various reasons, and inaccurate peer assessment ratings may unveil ineffective practices and student bias. A quasi-experimental design was used to test the impact of different feedback roles on the accuracy of peer assessment. During the five-week intervention, 24 Malaysian undergraduates from a local higher education institution, were assigned into three groups (feedback providers, receivers, and outsiders). A comparison was made between the assessments given by three expert raters and peer raters using the Rasch Partial Credit Model (PCM) to evaluate the accuracy of peer assessment. In addition, the qualitative results were obtained through thematic analysis, scrutinising participants’ reflection after each round of peer assessment, as well as open-ended surveys embedded before and after the longitudinal intervention, which enables the researcher to understand the participants’ subjective experiences and perceptions. The quantitative findings indicate that feedback receivers tended to provide the most accurate scores, closely followed by feedback providers, suggesting that those who receive feedback might be more adept at applying evaluative judgement when assessing their peers’ essays. Moreover, the Malaysian students participating in the study displayed a heightened awareness and recognition of the significance of Relevance and Adequacy of Content (RAC) in their argumentative essay writing. Furthermore, the study discovered a positive correlation between the writing quality of essays and the accuracy of peer assessment. Qualitative results show the distinctions between the scores and reflections provided by peer raters and expert raters. Moreover, the preand post-intervention survey data were analysed from the perspective of peer feedback orientation, unveiling the participants’ self-perception regarding utility, accountability, social awareness, and self-efficacy. In conclusion, the quantitative findings have tested relevant theories within the context of hybrid peer feedback and peer assessment settings, while the qualitative data have revealed the discrepancies between the peer raters and expert raters, as well as the participants’ openness towards the peer feedback and peer assessment. From a practical standpoint, the hybrid mode of peer feedback and peer assessment has the potential to enhance student evaluative judgement, optimise writing experiences, and equip students with valuable skills to become good writers.

Text 123891.pdf Download (1MB) Official URL or Download Paper: https://ethesis.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/18734

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