Peer & Self Assessment

Self-Assessment:
-

Self-assessment is the process of students reflecting on their

understanding of a particular subject or content.
Self-assessment emphasizes students engagement in their
learning and allows students to take responsibility of their
learning, while at the same time making them more motivated to
learn.

Peer-Assessment:
- Peer assessment is the process of having members of a group judge
the extent to which their fellow group members have exhibited specific
traits, behaviors or achievements to the group work (Kane & Lawler
1978).
- Peer-assessment involves students in the learning and evaluating
process during group work, allowing for students to be formatively and
summatively assessed.
- When peer-assessment is successful there is a cooperative
involvement of teachers and students.
- Peer assessment also acts as an instrument for teachers to gauge
whether or social loafing is occurring within a group project
- Peer-assessment works best under three conditions (Kane & Lawler
1978; McCormack 2008).
o Students are working together in a group setting
o Members are capable of accurately perceiving and
interpreting members contributions and behaviors
o A shared need to improve the effectiveness

Due to the nature of peer and self-assessment they

share many of the same advantages and
disadvantages. Below are some of the most common:
Advantages:
- Allow teachers to formatively and summatively assess student
involvement within a group project
- Allows students to build self-confidence and cultivates a desire to take
on real-world group projects (Rafiq and Fullerton 1996)
- Creates a sense of identity through working collaboratively with other
students

- Promotes engagement, communication, self -regulation and

leadership (Johnston and Miles 2004)
- Eliminates the incidence of free-riding
- Continuous observation and assessment of students
- Allows a student to understand and assess his or her own
understanding

Disadvantages:
- May result in the polarized effect- higher achieving students
underrating their performance and lower achieving students overrating
their own performance results in an unfair grade representation
- If peer assessments are being used for the summative assessment for
all group members students are more likely to overrate all members
contributions
- Unfair rewarding of friends or members of an in-group, students who
are friends are more likely to give higher scores to one another
contributions (social biases)
- Students may fear social alienation or bullying if they give a student a
poor assessment of their contributions
- Peer and self-assessment may be used to alleviate the teachers
workload and marking
- Students may overrate or underrate their personal performance on a
task being used summatively versus formatively
- Students who suffer from low academic confidence, but are
academically successful may underrate their understanding of a
concept or their contributions and receive a lower grade if used
summatively than deserved

Integrating Peer/Self Assessment in the Elementary

Classroom:
Self-Assessment:
-

Exit and enter slips: This allows for students to privately

assess their understanding and express where they may be
having difficulties. It also gives students the ability to take
ownership of their learning. All while informing the teacher of
where the students learning and understanding is at.
Hands up/Thumbs up: This is a formative technique for
teachers to quickly assess students understanding and
knowledge on a particular lesson or learning outcome
Hand-outs/Opinion Polls on a particular concept allows
students to confidentially and honestly reflect on their own
understanding and learning of a course related concept and

teachers to assess how well learning occurred

Learning logs- students keep records of each class or
assignment and make two lists, one about what was covered and
the other about what still remains unclear and hand in to
teachers.
Checklists

Peer-Assessment:
-

Feedback handout- Following a partner or group work activity

teachers handout a small questionnaire asking students to
measure their partners contributions to the group on a scale, in a
small sentence, or in younger elementary grades may be as
simple as circling a , , or face.
Two stars and a wish- students state two positive aspects of
group members work and a wish of what a peer member might
do next time for improvement to their project
Involving students in the creation of the rubric, this makes all
members of a group aware of the standards they are being held
to.

Integrating Peer/Self Assessment in the High School

Classroom:
Self- Assessment:
-

Checklists
Reflections/Journals: These give students the opportunity to
reflect on how they felt the group project went, what they
learned, and assess their contributions
Interviews: having a meeting with students one-on-one
following a group project can act as an excellent way to gauge
how they felt the group project went and what they learned. This
may not be attainable with a whole class, but selecting students
who may struggle in reflections/journals, but are strong in
discussions.
Exit and enter slips: This allows for students to privately
assess their understanding and express where they may be
having difficulties. It also gives students the ability to take
ownership of their learning. All while informing the teacher of
where the students learning and understanding is at.
Hand-outs/Opinion Polls: On a particular concept allows
students to confidentially and honestly reflect on their own
understanding and learning of a course related concept and
teachers to assess how well learning occurred

Peer-Assessment:
-

Feed-Back Handout: Following a group or partner activity

teachers hand-out confidential sheets where students assess the
contributions made by group members in either a multiple choice
format or short answer.
Involving students in the creation of the rubric and assess
student contributions (on a scale or grade letter)