Student peer review in the classroom: a teaching and grading tool (original) (raw)
Related papers
Teaching peer review and the process of scientific writing
Advances in physiology education, 2001
Many undergraduate and graduate students understand neither the process of scientific writing nor the significance of peer review. In response, some instructors have created writing assignments that teach or mimic parts of the scientific publishing process. However, none fully reproduced peer review and revision of papers together with the writing and publishing process from research to final, accepted draft. In addition, most have been instituted at the graduate rather than undergraduate level. We present a detailed method for teaching undergraduate students the full scientific publishing process, including anonymous peer review, during the process of writing a "term paper." The result is a review article in the format for submission to a major scientific journal. This method has been implemented in the course Cell and Molecular Biology for Engineers at the University of Virginia. Use of this method resulted in improved grades, much higher quality in the final manuscript,...
BioScience, 2002
P eer review or peer assessment is a process of evaluating work performance and products by peers. It is a vital part of professional life. For example, peer review is routinely used in two important phases of a research project: proposal evaluation and product assessment. Grant proposals are peer reviewed to ensure the quality, originality, and feasibility of the proposed work (Cole et al. 1982, Gaugler and Freckman 1990, Swift 1998). Research products such as papers for scientific journals are usually peer reviewed as well to enhance the quality of the journals, to maintain the integrity of the authors' work, and to provide accurate information for the scientific community (Waser et al. 1992, Bloom 1999). Despite the importance of peer review in scientific research (Cole et al. 1977, Kostoff 1997), few students receive formal training in reviewing proposals or manuscripts. Although some graduate students are exposed to the peer review process informally through their major professors, many graduate students and the vast majority of undergraduate students never have such experiences. Yet the value of peer review in the classroom has been recognized for many years (Gaillet 1992). Researchers have found that effective peer review in the classroom stimulates learning and critical thinking (
2008
Abstract: This study investigating the effectiveness of Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) ™ in a senior-level biochemistry class had three purposes: to (a) compare the CPR process for feedback with TA-generated feedback in improving students’ ability to write scientific abstracts; (b) compare CPR results for males and females; and (c) observe whether CPR improved the quality of student writing. Statistical analyses of three assignments by 50 students indicated significant differences between CPR and TA feedback on student writing quality. In addition, while scores of students who received TA feedback decreased, scores of students who had CPR improved. Students also progressed in CPR-generated measures of their writing and reviewing abilities. A separate analysis including 256 students found no significant differences between males and females. In addition, students’ writing showed statistically significant improvement in CPR-generated scores.
Development of Student Writing in Biochemistry Using Calibrated Peer Review
2008
This study investigating the effectiveness of Calibrated Peer Review (CPR ) ™ in a senior-level biochemistry class had three purposes: to (a) compare the CPR process for feedback with TA-generated feedback in improving students’ ability to write scientific abstracts; (b) compare CPR results for males and females; and (c) observe whether CPR improved the quality of student writing. Statistical analyses of three assignments by 50 students indicated significant differences between CPR and TA feedback on student writing quality. In addition, while scores of students who received TA feedback decreased, scores of students who had CPR improved. Students also progressed in CPR-generated measures of their writing and reviewing abilities. A separate analysis including 256 students found no significant differences between males and females. In addition, students’ writing showed statistically significant improvement in CPR-generated scores.
Exploring the use of peer review in large university courses
IxD&A, 2015
Double blind peer review is a standard practice in the scientific community. It acts as a means of validating work as well as of getting feedback to improve it. As such, it seems prudent to also use it as a learning tool in large lectures to provide students with personalized feedback on their work. The general process can be directly adopted for the lecture context, but details need to be modified and adapted to create a better learning experience. The structure of a large lecture has been adjusted to provide the context for a double blind peer review process. Not only has the evaluation of activities during the semester changed to fit in with the double blind peer review, but also the organization of said activities was adapted to accompany the evaluation change. The first semester yielded promising results, but also pointed towards some issues with the current state of the system. We devised a list of design implications for future revisions of the double blind peer review system...
Student Success
Learning how to give and receive peer review is a skill that science students need support in developing. We included student peer review in an assessment for a large first year science subject. Class time was dedicated to introducing and developing peer review skills and increasing engagement among students and between students and teachers. Students worked in pairs, small groups, and facilitated group discussions and were encouraged to learn from each other. The student peer review exercise provided students with the opportunity to reflect on and improve their work prior to submission. Survey results showed 78% of students agreed that peer review developed their ability to give constructive feedback. Training and resources provision for the teaching staff was crucial to the integration of peer review activities. Supported teaching staff were able to engage with and support the students, and the students valued this engagement and guidance.
Effective science communication is one of the key skills undergraduates must achieve and is one of the threshold learning outcomes for Science (TLO 4.1). In addition, presenting published research to their peers allows students to critically evaluate scientific research (TLO 3.1) and develop a deeper appreciation for the link between experimental methodologies and the contestable nature of scientific knowledge. Although it is recognised that feedback given to students has positive impacts on student learning, increasing workload pressures may restrict academics’ capacity to provide effective feedback. An alternate approach is to facilitate the exchange of feedback between peers, where gaining experience in providing feedback can further develop students’ skills in critique, which enhances their learning outcomes. In this study, 3rd year undergraduate biomedical science students were asked to provide anonymous, written feedback on the quality of an oral “journal club” presentation of a primary research article by a group of their peers. Students gave extensive, rich and detailed feedback to their peers. The quality of the feedback given was high, with most students receiving a grade of distinction or higher for the feedback they provided. In addition, the improvement in student learning outcomes was significantly greater with peer feedback than with academic feedback alone, suggesting that performing peer review provides students with additional benefits.
A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF PEER REVIEW IN HIGH SCHOOL
This dissertation analyzes longitudinal changes in high school students’ academic writing and peer feedback comments across four years. I analyzed the academic writing of 21 students and the peer feedback of 74 students at two time-points to document changes from 9th to 12th grade. My analysis of student writing focused on changes in the following features of academic writing: responding to a prompt, using evidence, stating ideas, organizing writing, and using academic grammar and language. My analysis of peer feedback comments focused on changes in features of effective feedback such as specificity, explanation, suggestion and a focus on content, not just form. The results of this study indicate that in a high school where peer review was used frequently and little writing instruction took place, students improved as academic writers over time, particularly in the areas of responding to the writing prompt and providing explanations of evidence. Teacher-created writing prompts and rubrics influenced these changes and students’ understanding of academic writing. Students also improved in their ability to provide effective feedback and to provide detailed assessments and suggestions about content and ideas, important characteristics of helpful feedback identified by previous research. Teacher-provided prompts influenced the content and quality of students’ feedback comments. Prompts that asked students to comment on quantity, such as the amount of evidence used, resulted in lower quality comments than prompts that asked students to comment on quality. Additionally, the analysis of feedback comments documented students’ development of metacognitive awareness around academic writing, specifically showing that students moved from thinking about writing as meeting minimum quantity requirements towards understanding the importance of quality over quantity in writing. Additionally, there was a correlation between the type of feedback comments students provided in 12th grade and the quality of the reviewer’s writing, suggesting that stronger writers more frequently provided effective feedback comments to their peers. Implications of the study include the need for teachers to provide more writing instruction that helps students fully explain ideas and evidence. Additionally, students need many opportunities to provide and discuss feedback to become proficient at providing helpful feedback to their peers.
Application of peer review in a university course: are students good reviewers?
2020
Peer review can be used as a teaching methodology to improve students' learning and critical thinking. However teachers have many concerns about the reliability and validity of students' grading. The paper describes the application of peer review as a teaching strategy to the large course of Biomedical Informatics in the School of Medicine at the University of Florence. The aim of the study was twofold: (I) assessing the validity of students' reviews, calculating the correlation between students' assigned score and instructor's assigned score; (II) assessing the validity of student's self-evaluation, calculating the correlation between student's assigned score and teacher's assigned score. To this aim a statistical analysis was performed. The results showed a moderate concordance between the marks assigned by peers and those assigned by the instructor. Neverthless the comparison between the teacher median and the peer-review median shows a minimal dif...