Peer feedback is a practice where feedback is given by one student to another. Peer feedback provides students opportunities to learn from each other. After students finish a writing assignment but before the assignment is handed in to the instructor for a grade, the students have to work together to check each other's work and give comments to the peer partner. Comments from peers are called as peer feedback. Peer feedback can be in the form of corrections, opinions, suggestions, or ideas to each other. Ideally, peer feedback is a two-way process in which one cooperates with the other.
Peer feedback involves providing opportunities for students to talk and listen, write, read meaningfully, and reflect on the content, ideas, issues, and concerns of an academic subject.[1] Peer feedback can be defined as "a communication process through which learners enter into dialogues related to performance and standards."[2] Peers should look for missing details, ask questions about parts that are confusing, and praise what they enjoyed.[3] Peer feedback may be referred to by many terms such as peer evaluation, peer critiquing, peer editing, or peer response.[4] Some researchers consider peer feedback as an effective technique for the development of the students' writing whilst others promote its use in oral presentation activities.[5] Others prefer instructor feedback to peer feedback. As a collaborative process of providing feedback and constructive criticism of each other's work, peer feedback has long been regarded as a valuable tool to improve writing skills.[6]
Benefits
According to Atay and Kurt,[7] there are positive effects to peer feedback in a classroom setting. First, it provides diversity with teaching compared with the traditional way of giving teacher feedback. In peer feedback sessions, students do not just listen to teacher instructions, but work with their peers and tend to get more practice. Students' anxiety may become lower which can increase learning motivation.
Second, sharing opinions with peers is helpful in building and increasing one's confidence. Clearly expressing what one is trying to say requires confidence and sufficient knowledge; people need to self dress what to say with their own knowledge or experiences. Thus, giving useful feedback definitely strengthens one's confidence. Moreover, peer feedback helps student to take more responsibilities in learning process. Besides doing assignments, students have to read others' work carefully as well so that one is not only responsible for his/her own work but also the others'.
When peer feedback is established it allows students to interact with their peers and creates high social skills while learning material more effectively. Interaction with other students allows students to have better social approaches when interacting. Learning by peer feedback gives students more of an opportunity to work as a unit instead of individuals working alone. Working in groups gives students more useful life skill that well help prepare them for the future. Peer feedback gives more control to the student, the student can decide if they want to use the criticism their peers are giving them or not.[8] When given options more students are more likely to give and absorb more feedback. Peer feedback has confirmed an increase in affect; students that have increasing responsibilities have more drive towards their work and a spike in confidence.[7] Furthermore, Kristanto (2018) found that peer feedback is an essential element of peer assessment. In peer assessment, feedback from peers can provide suggestions or correction for students' future works as companion of the received grade.[9]
In addition, peer feedback reduces writing anxiety, especially in ESL students,[10] and in effect improves the quality of their writing. Student’s awareness of their mistakes through their friend's opinions and the collaboration reduces anxiety.[11] Peer feedback enlightens student's awareness of the similar difficulties and weaknesses in writing their peers encounter and eventually motivates and builds their self-confidence, reducing writing anxiety. Peer feedback effectively compliments teacher feedback for quality writing[12] According to Jahin (2012) ESL students enjoy "social, cognitive, affective, and methodological benefits".[13] Peer feedback thereby offers students a sense of audience, which increases their motivation and confidence in writing.[14] The multiple reviews through peer feedback improve the quality of the ESL student’s writing. Hussein and Al Ashri (2013) explained that peer feedback can skill students into excellent writers as student’s apprehension to write the first time, eventually melts away.
Also, peer review is helpful because it develops students and makes them read and comment on each other to improve the process of writing with their peers. They can all feel the joy of sharing their comments and their writing within the group.[15] Therefore, students become more confidence about their writing. However, Urzua[16] reminds us of how crucial is the question of training learners to cope with the task of evaluating their peers. Students may not be able to ask constructive questions for redrafting.
According to Benjamin Keating, peer feedback can actually recreate the unfair effects it aims to mitigate, not only between teachers and students, but also among students, especially in terms of gender (Spear;Stygall), race (Fox;Villanueva), linguistic differences (Allaei and Connor;Silva and Matsuda), and ideological differences (Horner;Myers;Trimbur).[17]
Limitations
However, there are some drawbacks of peer feedback, too. According to Connor and Asenavage's study in 1994, they found that teacher feedback has more influences on students' writing work. Only 5 percent of peer feedback influences the work. Students respect and respond more to their teacher's feedback rather than their peers' feedback, and they often take peer feedback for granted so that they do not make corrections based on it. Thus, the teachers' strict requirement on students to do revisions is crucial for how students treat either teacher feedback or peer feedback.
In addition, some students actually lack ability to give peer feedback owing to insufficient knowledge. In this case, students hardly learn from others, so peer feedback loses track of its original rationale to help the other get improvement.
According to Lightfoot, there may be some problems with peer feedback, such as the challenge of people critically evaluating their work based on the feedback of others. In his research, the exploration of various forms of peer review provides students with direct experiential learning.[18]
Need for additional training
However, it is noted in several studies the difficulty in having students self-assess. One of the greatest difficulties is the accuracy of scores. Orsmond, Merry, and Reiling (1997) found that students often misjudged their assessments. Using a science class assessment project, they compared students' self-assessment scores with those of the teacher. They found that there was an overall disagreement between the markings of 86%, with 56% of students over-marking and 30% under-marking. They also noted a general trend of poor students tending to over-mark their work while the good students tended to under-mark their work.
Sadler (1989) counteracts these difficulties by emphasizing the need for teacher to pass the responsibility of assessment to the student through a process of students becoming a trainee in assessment. The teacher's role is to guide the student in critical evaluation of their learning. Providing guided but direct and authentic evaluative experience for students enables them to develop their evaluative knowledge, thereby bringing them within the guild of people who are able to determine quality using multiple criteria. It also enables transfer of some of the responsibility for making decisions from teacher to learner.[19]
A study by McDonald and Boud (2003) investigated whether introducing self-assessment training would affect student learning, specifically on how they perform on external measures of achievement. Teachers were trained in self-assessment practices and then they introduced the practices to their students. In the end, both the student and the teachers responded well to the self-assessment practices. On average, students who were trained in self-assessment strategies outperformed their peers in all curriculum are assessments. The students also reported that the practices were not only helpful on the external assessments, but that they also impacted their perceptions of their classroom learning.
This was reaffirmed by Orsmond, Merry, and Reiling (2000) who implemented a method of student self and peer assessment involving student constructed marking criteria with a poster presentation in a biology class. In an evaluative questionnaire at the end of the project, 84% of students stated the exercise (self-assessment reflective practices) had been beneficial, made them think more and become more critical. Some 68% of the students felt they had learned more and had gained confidence.
According to Muamaroh Muamaroh , and Ulya Septiana Pratiwi, Based on the questionnaires, the students did not satisfy if their peer gave feedback for their essay. They believed that their peers were not doing best in giving feedback. They also perceived that feedback was given by their peers was a bit unclear explanation and sometimes it made the students felt doubt whether their work was really incorrect or not.
"I am not satisfied if my work is corrected by a friend, because I feel that the feedback given is not optimal and they are not doing at their best." (SF8)
"In my opinion, the drawback of peer feedback is that the feedback given by friends is sometimes unclear and a little confusing, so I do not understand what the feedback is." (SF9)
"When I get feedback from friends, sometimes, I doubt with their feedback whether it is correct or not, and it makes me not believe in it." (SF13)[20]
Impact of cultural differences
Based on Allaei and Connor's finding (1990), students' view of peer feedback can be very different due to cultural differences, so the effectiveness of using peer feedback will not be the same in different situations. For example, Chinese students learning English are more likely to welcome peer feedback[21] than people from western countries because Chinese culture encourages working together and maintaining harmony in a group.[22] In contrast, the Western culture encourages individual study. Therefore, it is assumed that peer feedback may be more useful in Chinese learning environment than in Western countries.
Facilitating peer review in a classroom setting
Several studies have been conducted to assess how peer reviewing works in the classroom setting, many of which also make suggestions for how teachers can facilitate effective peer review sessions.[23]
Wigglesworth and Storch discuss the significance of peer reviews to gain constructive engagement with writing by considering which aspects of peer review help people understand their writing better and which ones don’t. They found that discussing writing with others enables students to reflect on and consider how to improve their writing in that collaborative feedback gives the author ideas on what they do well and what they need to work on.[24] Nevertheless, they acknowledge that collaborative writing and feedback can be negative, given issues such as students not giving equal amounts of effort when reading and having differences in writing styles, both of which can decrease the effectiveness of collaboration.[24] In order to address these challenges, the authors suggest that teachers establish clear guidelines, promote open communication, and create a safe work atmosphere as a means of reducing conflicts and making sure that working together and giving feedback is helpful for everyone.
In "Peer review from the student's perspective: Invaluable or invalid?" Charlotte Brammer states that teachers should discourage students from viewing peer review as a correction mechanism to recognizing its value as a collaborative engagement. The study found that students who received extensive instruction and preparation in conducting peer reviews displayed a higher level of appreciation for the process.[25] However, the findings also highlight concerns regarding unhelpful feedback and the reliability of peers' reviewing abilities, suggesting that teachers assist students in preparing for peer review and dedicating class time to facilitate it effectively, including having an understanding of the writer's audience, promoting meaningful group interaction, and encouraging thoughtful responses and revisions within the feedback.[25] Establishing a sense of shared community among students is crucial for creating trust and confidence in their peers' ability to provide accurate and valuable revisions, as well as avoiding unhelpful feedback.[25]
Kara Poe Alexander discusses the process of presenting and revising student work through peer review and notes that teachers play a pivotal role in guiding students through it effectively.[26] Alexander argues that example projects, assessment criteria sheets, and of expectations are essential and that holding multiple sessions of peer review with teacher involvement is helpful in providing comprehensive feedback.[26] She states that feedback sheet guides help keep readers focused during a review and give them a reference to look at when deciding what type of feedback to give. She also notes that taking in different types of feedback can give the writer an idea of how others see their work, and that it is useful for writers to engage readers with questions and readers to look at writing as if they are the intended audience for it. Both written and verbal feedback contribute to valuable insights for revision.[26] In a six-week-long study of international students, Bee Chamcharatsri explored the benefits and limitations of peer review and sought to determine if verbal and written feedback was more beneficial.[27] The results indicated that the preferred peer review method was verbal communication as participants reported that verbal communication was easier to convey their thoughts and concerns than using written feedback.[27]
Wendy Bishop's article "Revising the technical writing class: Peer Critiques, self-evaluation, and portfolio grading" explores other methods to enhance writing education. Bishop states that integrating peer critiques, self-evaluation, and portfolio grading can promote collaboration, critical thinking, and student growth by showcasing progress and achievements, and that peer critiques encourage active feedback exchange, thus improving self-reflection.[28] Bishop emphasizes how these approaches develop a deeper understanding of writing, boosting the confidence and proficiency of student writers.
According to Brieger, Katharine & Bromley, Pam. Studie aims to better understand how L2 writers conduct peer feedback activities, by looking at the types and traits of the feedback and how they influence revisions made in subsequent drafts using a web-based peer review system. A new methodology for studying web-based peer review comments is introduced. The results suggest that a specific type of feedback, alteration, and specific type of feedback, recurring, are important predictors for revision. Research on second language writing has found that when commenting on each other’s work, L2 students often focus on local issues, such as spelling, vocabulary and grammar, and much less on global issues, such as style, and content (Biber, Nekrasova, & Horn, 2011; Ferris, 2004, Leki, 1991). [29]
↑ Muamaroh, Muamaroh. "Advantages and Disadvantages of Peer Feedback on EFL Students Essay Writing at Tertiary Level".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
↑ Gere, Anne Ruggles; Silver, Naomi, eds. (2019). Developing Writers in Higher Education: A Longitudinal Study. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-13124-2.
1 2 Wigglesworth, Gillian; Storch, Neomy (2012). "What role for collaboration in writing and writing feedback". Journal of Second Language Writing. 21 (4): 364–374. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2012.09.005.
1 2 3 Brammer, Charlotte; Rees, Mary (2007). "Peer Review from the Students' Perspective: Invaluable or Invalid?". Composition Studies. 35 (2): 71–85. JSTOR43501704.
1 2 3 Alexander, Kara Poe. (2007). More about reading, responding, and revising: The three Rs of peer review and revision. In Selfe, Cynthia L. (ed.), Multimodal composition: Resources for teachers; Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press (pp. 113-131).
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work. It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication. Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, e.g., medical peer review. It can also be used as a teaching tool to help students improve writing assignments.
English as a second or foreign language refers to the use of English by individuals whose native language is different, commonly among students learning to speak and write English. Variably known as English as a foreign language (EFL), English as a second language (ESL), English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), English as an additional language (EAL), or English as a new language (ENL), these terms denote the study of English in environments where it is not the dominant language. Programs such as ESL are designed as academic courses to instruct non-native speakers in English proficiency, encompassing both learning in English-speaking nations and abroad.
Educational assessment or educational evaluation is the systematic process of documenting and using empirical data on the knowledge, skill, attitudes, aptitude and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning. Assessment data can be obtained by examining student work directly to assess the achievement of learning outcomes or it is based on data from which one can make inferences about learning. Assessment is often used interchangeably with test but is not limited to tests. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community, a course, an academic program, the institution, or the educational system as a whole. The word "assessment" came into use in an educational context after the Second World War.
Rod Ellis is a Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize-winning British linguist. He is currently a research professor in the School of Education, at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. He is also a professor at Anaheim University, where he serves as the Vice president of academic affairs. Ellis is a visiting professor at Shanghai International Studies University as part of China’s Chang Jiang Scholars Program and an emeritus professor of the University of Auckland. He has also been elected as an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Second language writing is the study of writing performed by non-native speakers/writers of a language as a second or foreign language. According to Oxford University, second language writing is the expression of one's actions and what one wants to say in writing in a language other than one's native language. The process of second language writing has been an area of research in applied linguistics and second language acquisition theory since the middle of the 20th century. The focus has been mainly on second-language writing in academic settings.
Composition studies is the professional field of writing, research, and instruction, focusing especially on writing at the college level in the United States.
The desire to learn is often related to the concept of ‘motivation’. Motivation is the most used concept for explaining the failure or success of a language learner. Second language (L2) refers to a language an individual learns that is not his/her mother tongue, but is of use in the area of the individual. It is not the same as a foreign language, which is a language learned that is not generally spoken in the individual's area. In research on motivation, it is considered to be an internal process that gives behavior energy, direction and persistence in research . Learning a new language takes time and dedication. Once one does, being fluent in a second language offers numerous benefits and opportunities. Learning a second language is exciting and beneficial at all ages. It offers practical, intellectual and many aspirational benefits. In learning a language, there can be one or more goals – such as mastery of the language or communicative competence – that vary from person to person. There are a number of language learner motivation models that were developed and postulated in fields such as linguistics and sociolinguistics, with relations to second-language acquisition in a classroom setting. The different perspectives on L2 motivation can be divided into three distinct phases: the social psychological period, the cognitive-situated period and the process-oriented period.
Willingness to communicate (WTC) was originally conceptualised for first language acquisition, and seeks to demonstrate the probability that a speaker will choose to participate in a conversation of their own volition. Traditionally, it was seen as a fixed personality trait that did not change according to context. However, McCroskey and associates suggested that it is in fact a situational variable that will change according to a number of factors.
English-language learner is a term used in some English-speaking countries such as the United States and Canada to describe a person who is learning the English language and has a native language that is not English. Some educational advocates, especially in the United States, classify these students as non-native English speakers or emergent bilinguals. Various other terms are also used to refer to students who are not proficient in English, such as English as a second language (ESL), English as an additional language (EAL), limited English proficient (LEP), culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD), non-native English speaker, bilingual students, heritage language, emergent bilingual, and language-minority students. The legal term that is used in federal legislation is 'limited English proficient'.
A course evaluation is a paper or electronic questionnaire, which requires a written or selected response answer to a series of questions in order to evaluate the instruction of a given course. The term may also refer to the completed survey form or a summary of responses to questionnaires.
Formative assessment, formative evaluation, formative feedback, or assessment for learning, including diagnostic testing, is a range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment. The goal of a formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work. It also helps faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately. It typically involves qualitative feedback for both student and teacher that focuses on the details of content and performance. It is commonly contrasted with summative assessment, which seeks to monitor educational outcomes, often for purposes of external accountability.
A foreign language writing aid is a computer program or any other instrument that assists a non-native language user in writing decently in their target language. Assistive operations can be classified into two categories: on-the-fly prompts and post-writing checks. Assisted aspects of writing include: lexical, syntactic, lexical semantic and idiomatic expression transfer, etc. Different types of foreign language writing aids include automated proofreading applications, text corpora, dictionaries, translation aids and orthography aids.
A literature circle is equivalent for young people of an adult book club, but with greater structure, expectation and rigor. The aim is to encourage thoughtful discussion and a love of reading in young people. The intent of literature circles is "to allow students to practice and develop the skills and strategies of good readers".
Peer critique, a specialized form of critique, is the common practice of professional peers, especially writers, reviewing and providing constructive criticism of each other's work before that work is turned in for credit or professional review.
Peer assessment, or self-assessment, is a process whereby students or their peers grade assignments or tests based on a teacher's benchmarks. The practice is employed to save teachers time and improve students' understanding of course materials as well as improve their metacognitive skills. Rubrics are often used in conjunction with self- and peer-assessment.
Academic discourse socialization is defined as one's growing process to realize the academic discourse and reach the expectation of the academic community. Academic discourse socialization is a form of language socialization through which newcomers or novices gain knowledge of the academic discourses by socializing and interacting with peers, experts, or more knowledgeable people in their community and social network. A dynamic and complex process, academic discourse socialization requires negotiation of both knowledge and one's identity. This kind of interaction is defined as a bidirectional process in which both novice learners and experts learn from one another.
Revision is a process in writing of rearranging, adding, or removing paragraphs, sentences, or words. Writers may revise their writing after a draft is complete or during the composing process. Revision involves many of the strategies known generally as editing but also can entail larger conceptual shifts of purpose and audience as well as content. Within the writing process, revision comes once one has written a draft to work with, so that one can re-see and improve it, iteratively. Working at both deeper and more surface levels a writer can increase the power of the text.
A dialogue journal is an ongoing written interaction between two people to exchange experiences, ideas, knowledge or reflections. It is used most often in education as a means of sustained written interaction between students and teachers at all education levels. It can be used to promote second language learning and learning in all areas.
Writing assessment refers to an area of study that contains theories and practices that guide the evaluation of a writer's performance or potential through a writing task. Writing assessment can be considered a combination of scholarship from composition studies and measurement theory within educational assessment. Writing assessment can also refer to the technologies and practices used to evaluate student writing and learning. An important consequence of writing assessment is that the type and manner of assessment may impact writing instruction, with consequences for the character and quality of that instruction.
A display question is a type of question requiring the other party to demonstrate their knowledge on a subject matter when the questioner already knows the answer. They are contrasted with referential questions, a type of question posed when the answer is not known by the questioner at the time of inquiry.
References
Atay, D. & Kurt, G. (2006). "Prospective Teachers and L2 Writing Anxiety". Asian EFL Journal, 8 (4), pp. 100–118.
Atay, D. & Kurt, G. (2007). "The Effects of Peer Feedback on the Writing Anxiety of Prospective Turkish Teachers of EFL". Journal of Theory and Practice in Education 3 (1). pp. 12–23.
Guardado, M., & Shi, L. (2007). "ESL Students’ Experiences of Online Peer Feedback". Computers and Composition, 24(4), 444-462.
Jahin, J. H. (2012). The Effect of Peer Reviewing on Writing Apprehension and Essay Writing Ability of Prospective EFL Teachers. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 37(11).
Keh, C (1990). Feedback in the writing process: A model and methods for implementation, ELT Journal, 44(4), 294-304.
Kristanto, Y. D. (2018). Technology-enhanced pre-instructional peer assessment: Exploring students’ perceptions in a Statistical Methods course. REiD (Research and Evaluation in Education), 4(2), 105-116. https://doi.org/10.21831/reid.v4i2.20951
Lacy, KW. (1989). Treasure hunt: A student-centred to ESL writing. In V. Bickley (Ed.) Language Teaching and Learning Styles within and across Culture. Hong Kong: Education Department.
Lin, S., Liu, E. & Yuan, S. (2001). "Web-based Peer Assessment: Feedback for Students with Various Thinking-styles". Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 17. pp. 420–432.
Liu, N. F., & Carless, D. (2006). Peer feedback: the learning element of peer assessment. Teaching in Higher education, 11(3), 279-290.
McDonald, B., & Boud, D. (2003). The impact of self-assessment on achievement: The effects of self-assessment training on performance in external examinations. Assessment in Education, 10, pp. 209–220.
Meyers, C., & Jones, T. B. (1993). Promoting Active Learning. Strategies for the College Classroom. Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco, CA 94104.
Miao, Y., Badger, R. & Zhen Y. (2006) A Comparative Study of Peer and Teacher Feedback in a Chinese EFL Writing Class.
Orsmond, P., Merry, S., & Reiling, K. (1997). A study in self-assessment: Tutor and students’ perceptions of performance criteria. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 22, pp. 357–370.
Orsmond, P., Merry, S., & Reiling K. (2000). The use of student derived marking criteria in peer and self-assessment. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 25, pp. 23–38.
Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science, 18, pp. 119–144.
Tseng, S. & Tsai, C. (2007). "On-line Peer Assessment and the Role of the Peer Feedback: A Study of High School Computer Course". Journal of Computers & Education 49, pp. 1161–1174.
Urzua, C. (1987). " You Stopped Too Soon": Second Language Children Composing and Revising. TESOL quarterly, 279-304.
van Ginkel, S., Gulikers, J., Biemans, H. & Mulder, M. (2016) Fostering oral presentation performance: does the quality of feedback differ when provided by the teacher, peers or peers guided by tutor? Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(6), pp.1-14.
Wakabayashi, R. (2013). The Effects of the Peer Feedback Process on Reviewers' Own Writing. English Language Teaching, 6(9), 177.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
