Can Online Peer Assessment Be Trusted
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: Introduction Learning assessment often constitutes a problematic task for the teacher. Its repetitive nature makes the teacher's job fastidious and the grading of hundreds of exam papers is far from exciting. In addition, the educational value of the assessment methods is often very low. The post-exam phases are difficult to put into practice with a large number of students, particularly, the feedback phase. Moreover, students are not really fond of these phases. In order to improve this situation, several devices can be used depending on the aspects that need to be changed. In this study, our primary concern is not to improve the reliability or the quality of assessment (De Ketele & Gerard, 2005), but rather to reduce the teacher's workload, without affecting the quality of assessment. In order to attain this, we suggest the use of computer-assisted assessments (Davies, 2001; Stephens & Bull, 1998) and the application of online peer assessment (Topping, 1998). Our proposal could be acceptable for the formative assessment of the learning process (Perrenoud, 2001) as this assessment method does not have many direct consequences on decisions concerning access to the following year or to certification. However, what about summative evaluation? Can grading carried out by students be trusted* What are the conditions of acceptability of our proposal? Several attempts (Topping, 1998) have been made to involve more students in this kind of approach, but it seems that the use of technologies can facilitate the implementation of these solutions. What remains to be established is whether this study can show that the assessment, thus produced, will be acceptable. Our research focuses on this issue of acceptability by measuring precisely the difference between assessments carried out by peers and those carried out by the teacher. Online peer assessment The use of online peer assessment is recent. It allows the students to assess the work of their peers and even assess their own work. Unlike the self-assessment techniques, which are generally limited to basic cognitive levels (Bloom, 1956; Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), peer assessment enables to develop learning at high cognitive levels. This is a method that involves the students in the revision, assessment, and feedback process of work online. Doiron (2003) indicates that certain authors criticize the use of information and communication technology for peer assessment, arguing that it is not as rigorous as traditional types of assessment, that it requires too much student effort by putting too much pressure on them, that it is not reliable, and that it is not necessarily fair. In response, other authors such as Bostock (2000) are convinced that the (formative or summative) assessment of other students' work by the students themselves has several advantages for the learning process, both for the assessor and the assessee. Bostock points out that peer assessment encourages the students to be independent and develops skills in high cognitive areas. He acknowledges certain weaknesses of this type of assessment, in particular the over-estimating of friends' work, but he explains that this can be avoided by setting up a system which would guarantee anonymity, multiple assessments, a great number of assessors, and moderation by the teacher. Moreover, Bostock, specifies that Internet and information and communication technologies enable an easier management of a greater number of students. Several authors (Rada & Michailidis & Wang, 1994; Fisher, 1999) explain that peer assessment may be proposed as an alternative solution to reducing teacher workload. Thus, Cho et al. (2006) explain that, despite the progress made during the last two decades in student writing skills, the courses rarely include real comprehensive writing tasks. According to them, this is due to the teachers' workload: assessing writing skills requires too much time and effort (Rada et al. …
Source: Educational Technology & Society
Authors: L'hadi Bouzidi, Alain Jaillet
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2136456330