Peer Assessment

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• Peer Assessment
• Whats it all about?

Ian Hughes Faculty of Biological Sciences, Univ
ersity of Leeds, UK i.e.hughes_at_leeds.ac.uk
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What is peer assessment and why do it?

• Students assessing students
• Because
• youll have to, early in a job
• it teaches you about critical appraisal
• it gives experience in critical appraisal
• if you can assess others you can assess and
  improve your own work independent
  scientist/worker
• you get complete feedback on what you should have
  done
• you can compare your work and standards with
  others
• you understand the work better
• you learn it better
• --- Research evidence ---

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GOOD assessment

• Accurate and reproducible
• Appropriate methods used
• Efficient and timely
• Related to learning objectives
• Monitors student progress
• Provides staff-student contact
• ALWAYS provides high quality feedback
• Stimulates learning
• Develop self-assessment abilities
• Appeals process

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Does peer assessment make the grade?

• Accurate and reproducible
• Appropriate methods used
• Efficient and timely
• Related to learning objectives
• Monitors student progress
• Provides staff-student contact
• ALWAYS provides high quality feedback
• Stimulates learning
• Develop self-assessment abilities
• Appeals process

?
integrity issue
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What have we peer-assessed?

• Verbal communication
• Poster presentations
• Information retrieval and formatting
• Laboratory reports
• Data interpretation exercises
• Long essays ()
• Saves staff time, improves student learning,
  creates ability to assess self and others

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Verbal presentation skills
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Academic staff mark
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60
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y-0.1 1.05x r0.88
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40
40
60
80
Peer mark
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Verbal presentation skills

• MARKING
• n44 ACADEMIC
  PEER
• Global mean 63.27.8
  60.26.1
• Commonality
• Top quartile 11
  10
• means.e. 77.24.8
  74.15.6
• Bottom quartile 11
  9
• means.e. 48.23.5
  44.13.9

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Data handling and interpretation
Peer mark
Academic staff mark
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Why use peer assessment of lab write-ups?

• saves staff time and effort (200 every 14 days)
• all get all the information
• provides full explanation
• requires better understanding
• develops critical evaluation
• see others mistakes and standards
• exposes bias/fairness/integrity issues

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How is it done?

• explain purpose
• instructions on format additional questions
• hand-in deadline (penalty)
• all in LT (350) (penalty) - distribute at random
• explicit marking schedule distributed
• prepared explanations OHP
• total marks and sign (10 checked)
• reproducible
• appeals procedure

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Practical write-ups
Peer marked
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Mark (out of 10)
7
Acad. staff marked
6
5
1
2
3
4
Practical
number
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What are the problems?

• introduction and initiation
• keep silence during marking!
• some students dont like it (hard work, its your
  job, some are unfair)
• marking schedules get passed on
• cheating?
• scheduling all same prac time between prac and
  marking session standard answer /data

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Peer poster assessment

• Group A Group B Group C
• n4 n4 n4
• staff peer peer
• first poster 564 554 593
• staff staff staff
• second poster 674 834
  785
• staff
  P assess
• only
  P assessed P assessed
• NOTE peer process took significantly longer
  small numbers groups not isolated 6 weeks
  between posters rest of course ongoing self
  selection of groups new method effect

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Peer assessment of long essays

• Medical students
• 3000 - 4000 words
• Proforma for staff and students (properly
  referenced, critical approach, evidence based
  good presentation)
• Staff mark 70.22.1
• Student mark 72.62.2
• NSD Pgt0.7

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Medical student long essays
Peer (self) mark
Academic staff mark
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Take home messages

• PEER ASSESSMENT
• is good assessment
• can improve student learning
• equips you for the real world

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Peer marking schedule (1)
Why are we doing this? You will get several
things from this (new to you?) assessment
method 1. It is an open marking system you can
see what was required and how to improve your
work. 2. You see mistakes others make and can
avoid them you also see the standard achieved by
other and can set your own work in the spectrum
of marks. 3. You get an explanation of the
practical and how you should have processed the
data and done the discussion. Therefore your
information and understanding is improved. 4.
You get practise in assessing others and their
work. You will need this skill early in a career
and you must overcome bias someone who is a good
friend may have done poor work it can be
disturbing to have to give them a poor mark. 5.
In assessing others you should acquire the
ability to stand back from your own work and
assess that as well. This is essential in any
scientist an unbiased and objective assessment
of the standard of your own work. Once you leave
University you will be the person who decides if
a piece of work is good enough to be passed on to
your boss. The method of marking adopted in
Pharmacology 1010 is specifically designed with
these factors in mind.
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Peer marking schedule (2)
Urinary excretion of aspirin in humans -
marking schedule. NOTE the numbers in
parentheses are the marks available. You may
award all or part of the available marks
depending on how completely the point has been
covered. For each point write the mark given and
draw a circle round it on the write-up next to
the item assessed. At the end add up the marks
(don't forget presentation) and write the total
mark and your name (legibly) in a circle at the
top of the first page. Up to (20) marks are
available for presentation assess neatness,
clarity, legibility and how easy or difficult it
is to find your way round the work presented. 1.
Is it dated. All work should be. (1) 2. Is it
named. (1) 3. It should have a title (1) and a
heading of introduction. (1) Does the
introduction state the objectives a).
illustrate measurement of drugs in biological
fluids (2) b). study excretion of aspirin after
oral administration (2) c). to examine
variability in biological results (2) 4. The
heading of method must be there (1) and in that
section it must state " see handout " or the
method must be written out. (3)
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Peer marking schedule (3)
5. The heading of results must be there (1)
----- first calibration curve. Must give OD
values either as data or as points on the graph
(5) graph must be titled (2) the OD and
concentration axes must be labelled with UNITS
(4) units are ug/ml sodium salicylate OD has no
units. points should be joined with line (1) Is
it a straight-line relationship? It should be (6)
this is a measure of the care with which the
experiment was done. ----- second individual
data as a table showing time (units) (2), volume
(units) (2) and OD (2). Plot graph of OD against
time titled (2) x-axis time (units) (2)
y-axis OD (2) draw in lines (2) to join
points individual points should be shown (2)
draw in 1.5 OD (or whatever was the end-point
chosen in the class) line and obtain time
required to reach this OD with units (4). -----
third derive maximum concentration of sodium
salicylate in your urine Decide if it is better
to join points with straight lines or draw a
smooth curve through the points. Either can be
done. Obtain maximum OD from the graph (2) This
OD can then be converted to a concentration from
the calibration curve (2). NOTE the urine was
diluted 2-fold (see method 5 ml made to 10 ml)
therefore the concentration MUST be doubled to
get the concentration in the urine (6).