Peer feedback can take a variety of forms, for example in the form of a presentation to or role plays with peers, or can take the form of peer group feedback on each other’s essay plan for example.
Peer feedback can be one to one or be done in groups. Peer feedback, followed by some lecturer feedback, has been found to be beneficial to students.
There are many benefits to peer formative feedback including;
- Variety of feedback methods- written, verbal, group, online
- Real time feedback
- Encourages confidence in the students giving the peer feedback as well as those receiving it
- Enhances and can support lecturer feedback
- Engages students
- Can be used to support a range of student learning needs.
- Leads to good peer dialogue- explaining theories or key concepts to each other
- Positive impacts on motivation for learning, as often no grades are attached to peer learning. Therefore encourages a focus on learning goals instead of performance goals.
- Allows lecturers to praise efforts and learning behaviours, without needing to focus on attainment, which may result in improved self-esteem.
- Providing real time feedback on student understanding to the lecturer, allowing teaching methods to be adapted to the current cohort needs.
- Encourages an active classroom.
- It can be difficult to begin with for students with lower confidence, but can raise this in a supportive environment.
- Requires full participation by all group members, so must be facilitated, certainly to start with
- Can be time intensive but creativity and good facilitation
- Encourage participation from all group members
- Ensure that students know how to give helpful and constructive feedback in a kind way. This means spending time giving clarity on the marking criteria, but this will have the additional benefit of making it clear to the student for their own work.
- Make sure that all facilitators are engaged with the structure of the formative assessment.
- Ensure that there is a method for collating/recording feedback for staff and students.
- Ensure that facilitators are aware of the emotional impact of receiving peer feedback
- Make sure that if assessment is involved that there is clarity of the marking process so that students have confidence in the assessment process (Vickerman, 2009; Kritikos et al., 2011).
- In a large recent meta-analysis, engagement in peer feedback was shown to result in larger writing improvements compared to (no-feedback) controls and compared to self-assessment. Peer feedback and teacher feedback resulted in similar writing improvements (Huisman et al, 2018)
- Ideally formative feedback should encourage the principles of good overall feedback (Nicol and MacFarlane-Dick, 2006) and peer feedback can provide this whilst also increase student engagement (Vickerman, 2009; Kritikos et al., 2011).
- Research has shown that peer face-to-face feedback can be received well by students (McCarthy, 2017, Huisman et al, 2018)
- Facilitated peer feedback allows staff to gain feedback about individual and cohort learning and students to gain feedback in real time
- A popular mechanism for formative feedback it allows for a variety of methods to suit both the required outcomes of the task and the cohort.
Huisman,B; Saab,N; van den Broek, P; van Driel, J (2019). The impact of formative peer feedback in higher education students’ academic writing: a Meta-Analysis. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 44(6). Pp 863-880
Kritikos, V. S., Woulfe, J., Sukkar, M. B. and Saini, B. (2011) ‘Intergroup peer assessment in problem-based learning tutorials for undergraduate Pharmacy students’, American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 75(4). doi: 10.5688/ajpe75473.
McCarthy, J. (2017) ‘Enhancing feedback in higher education: Students’ attitudes towards online and in-class formative assessment feedback models’, Active Learning in Higher Education, 18(2), pp. 127–141. doi: 10.1177/1469787417707615.
Nicol, D. and MacFarlane-Dick, D. (2006) ‘Formative assessment and selfregulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice’, Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), pp. 199–218. doi: 10.1080/03075070600572090.
Vickerman, P. (2009) ‘Student perspectives on formative peer assessment: an attempt to deepen learning?’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 34(2), pp. 221–230. doi: 10.1080/02602930801955986.
Need inspiration? Click the approaches in the table below.
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