The learning benefits of peer assessment and providing peer feedback have been widely reported. However, it is still not understood which learning activities most facilitate the acquisition of... Show moreThe learning benefits of peer assessment and providing peer feedback have been widely reported. However, it is still not understood which learning activities most facilitate the acquisition of feedback skills. This study aimed to compare the effect of a modeling example, i.e., a model that demonstrated how to give feedback, on the acquisition of feedback skills. The participants were second-year bachelor students in pedagogical sciences (N = 111). They were assigned randomly to a practice condition, in which they practiced giving feedback on oral presentations, or a modeling example condition, in which a teacher demonstrated how to give feedback on a good and a bad presentation. Students then gave feedback to a presenter in a video (direct feedback measure). One week later, they gave each other peer feedback on oral presentations (delayed feedback measure). On the direct feedback measure, students in the modeling example condition used assessment criteria more often in their feedback, and produced significantly more overall feedback, and significantly more positive and negative judgments than students in the practice condition. There was no significant difference in the amount of elaboration and feed-forward between the two conditions. On the delayed feedback measure, there were no significant differences between the two experimental conditions. The results suggest that, at least in the short term, a modeling example can stimulate the use of assessment criteria and judgments in feedback. The results and implications for future research and practice are discussed. Show less
This thesis investigates the relation between peer feedback and higher education students’ writing performance through a quantitative lens. In doing so, it aims to advance our knowledge on the... Show moreThis thesis investigates the relation between peer feedback and higher education students’ writing performance through a quantitative lens. In doing so, it aims to advance our knowledge on the extent to which peer feedback impacts students’ academic writing, and on how specific aspects of task design relate to student performance. First, a meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize the available evidence regarding the impact of formative peer feedback on higher education students’ writing performance. To date, the number of well-controlled, quantitative studies still appears scarce. Further, peer feedback appeared to be more effective than self-assessment and comparable with teacher feedback. Second, three empirical studies were conducted to investigate the impact of specific elements of peer feedback task-design. In an on-campus course, same-ability matching and different-ability matching yielded similar results. Online (in a MOOC), peer reviewers’ ability related positively to participants’ writing performance. The third empirical study showed that providing peer feedback can be as beneficial to students’ writing performance as receiving peer feedback. The final chapter describes a questionnaire to assess students’ peer feedback beliefs, which can support teaching staff and researchers in monitoring the acceptance of and – hence – the potential effectiveness of peer feedback as an instructional method. Show less
Huisman, B.A.; Saab, N.; Driel, J.H. van; Broek, P.W. van den 2018
Within the higher education context, peer feedback is frequently applied as an instructional method. Research on the learning mechanisms involved in the peer feedback process has covered aspects of... Show moreWithin the higher education context, peer feedback is frequently applied as an instructional method. Research on the learning mechanisms involved in the peer feedback process has covered aspects of both providing and receiving feedback. However, a direct comparison of the impact that providing and receiving peer feedback has on students’ writing performance is still lacking. The current study compared the writing performance of undergraduate students (N = 83) who either provided or received anonymous written peer feedback in the context of an authentic academic writing task. In addition, we investigated whether students’ peer feedback perceptions were related to the nature of the peer feedback they received and to writing performance. Results showed that both providing and receiving feedback led to similar improvements of writing performance. The presence of explanatory comments positively related both to how adequate students perceived the peer feedback to be, as well as to students’ willingness to improve based upon it. However, no direct relation was found between these peer feedback perceptions and students’ writing performance increase. Show less
Huisman, B.A.; Saab, N.; Driel, J.H. van; Broek, P.W. van den 2016
