A Model for Short Peer-Assessment

Abstract

Formative assessment is has been proven to have positive impacts on students learning gains. There has been an increased focus on formative assessment, both nationally and internationally. All of the potential effects of formative assessment are not fully discovered, and there are untested areas that can potentially have a great effect on student learning gains. Self-assessment is an integral part of formative assessment and is needed in a future where learning strategy is vital for dealing with a rapidly changing society. Peer-assessment, the act where students provide feedback on other students' work, has shown to have significant benefits for students in several areas. One of these benefits is related to self-assessment. By providing feedback to others, students are raising their skills in self-assessment. This study explores a possible avenue of utilizing a digital scaffold to conduct short peer-assessments by proposing a model for short peer-assessment. The model is expanded into a method to explore some of the potential effects the model can have on self-assessment. It is suggested that a digital scaffold with support for both teachers and students can be potentially vital for the proposed model and method. The model and the method reveals several areas that possibly can provide positive benefits for students' self-assessment skills. The potentially most important benefit revealed in this thesis is the increased number of feedback opportunities that the model can provide. Shorter sessions of peer-assessment take less time and can allow for a higher number of peer-assessment sessions. It also allows for a higher number of feedback opportunities within each peer-assessment session. Further study is required in order to determine how much impact, if any, shorter peer-assessment sessions can have on student gains in self-assessment skills. However, arguments based on the proposed model and existing literature presented in the thesis suggests that a higher number of feedback opportunities can have a significant effect.