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.