Better to peer review than be reviewed (but both support learning)

Student peer reviews come with baggage: many students have had one too many experiences with less-than-inspiring feedback or disengaged partners. Drumming up enthusiastic participation in a classroom peer review exercise has been compared to “making a horse drink.”

Yet, a significant body of research demonstrates that peer review is an excellent way to help students gain content knowledge and reflect on coursework, with significant potential for supporting learning. With this in mind, we can view peer review as challenging to facilitate in part because it is a learning challenge. 

Here’s how I like to explain this challenge (and at this point, I’m becoming a broken record when teaching or facilitating programs that include student feedback): Providing good feedback is one of the most intellectually demanding tasks that can be asked of a student. To give good feedback, a student not only needs to understand the task at hand but also to envision their reviewee’s best possible response. And then, evaluate where the current work is falling short of the ideal work, hopefully creating some concrete suggestions for improvement. In instructional design language, peer review doesn’t just occupy the higher end of Bloom’s Taxonomy– it spans the whole pyramid. 

These challenges of creating feedback pay off for student participants.  The act of giving feedback is more important for meeting learning outcomes than receiving feedback. In a 2010 study, Li et. al. found a “significant relationship between the quality of peer feedback students provided for others and the quality of the students’ own final projects” (p. 525) but there was no such relationship for feedback received. 

In part, this is because providing feedback helps students reflect on their work. In a study based on peer review of experimental design, Anker-Hansen and Andrée (2014) found that “more than half of the students used the feedback that they had themselves provided to another student when amending their own experimental design. Actually, the feedback given was used slightly more often as a source for amendment than received feedback” (p. 67). By suggesting revisions to other students, students identify areas they would like to change in their own work. 

With the benefits of peer review in mind, it’s worth considering formalizing peer review assignments in your class. In Canvas, the Peer Review function will allow students to mark up peer work with the same tools you have in Speedgrader, and you can easily attach an assignment rubric. Google Drive is a very streamlined collaborative tool that can be set up for your class. If you plan to dedicate a lot of time to peer review, especially in a writing-heavy class, a dedicated peer review tool like Eli Review may be worth checking out.  

Here are a few more ideas for getting the most out of peer review in your teaching: 

Make it count

Given the potential for peer review to support learning outcomes, consider how the peer review assignment will affect course grades. Weight the grade or allocate points to show students that the activity is important, as well as offer explanations of the impact on learning. 

Guide the feedback

Because feedback is such a high-cognitive-load process, it can be helpful to offer guidance on what parts of the assignment you want students to look over. There are several approaches to this, from offering a list of suggestions to creating a detailed rubric or worksheet. With any approach, also spend some time discussing what high-quality feedback looks like and offer examples of useful comments. 

Here is an example of a worksheet that guides the peer review process from an in-person writing class. You are welcome to make a copy and adapt it for your class if you find it useful. 

Create impactful discussion boards 

Using discussion boards for peer feedback can be a great way to generate meaningful conversation and actionable learning. They also can be a great tool for breaking down feedback into manageable “bites.” Instead of asking students to post a full draft of their work, use a discussion board to have students share their intended thesis statement for their final paper or introduction to a lab report. 

An added bonus for the discussion board: since it is generally an open resource in the course, students can peruse the posts and feedback if they are feeling lost or if they would like more ideas for improvement. 

Debrief and discuss

While writing feedback is great for learning, receiving feedback is still helpful. Anker-Hansen and Andrée (2014) found that the effectiveness of received feedback increased when there was a follow-up discussion, as “the discussion groups consequently had a significant impact on individual students’ choice to make amendment of their design and strategies were formed how to use the received feedback” (p. 68). This can be a straightforward activity to facilitate in an in-person or hybrid class: designate some time for review teams to discuss their work in small groups or breakout rooms. It will likely take a bit more innovation in an asynchronous online course – experiment with asking students to debrief in chat settings like Slack or Discord, encourage scheduled phone or video chats if time allows, or create a Canvas group discussion for follow-up questions. 

Debriefing can also be a valuable activity when done solo. Li et. al (2010) suggests that asking students to refer to the assignment or rubric when receiving peer feedback that contradicts their understanding may initiate active learning. Encourage students to use received feedback to think critically about an assignment–or as an opportunity to start a conversation with instructors or TAs. 

References

Anker-Hansen, J., & Andrée, M. (2015). More Blessed to Give Than Receive – A Study of Peer-assessment of Experimental Design. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 167, 65–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.12.643

Li, L., Liu, X., & Steckelberg, A. L. (2010). Assessor or assessee: How student learning improves by giving and receiving peer feedback. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(3), 525–536. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00968.x