Evaluation questions in Buddycheck

Buddycheck allows you to create 4 types of questions:

Peer questions – where each student rates each group member, including themself,  individually
- Likert questions, where each individual’s performance is rated by other group members against a variety of criteria on Likert- style scales 1-3, 1-5 (default) and 1-9)
- points division - where each student has to divide a number of points (100 - default) between group members to reflect their contributions to the project against each of the selected criteria
Group questions – where each student rates the group as a whole
Open questions - where group members provide a general response to questions about the teamwork or the project
Peer messages - individual messages to each of the team members.

What are you assessing?

Knowing what questions to ask is critical. What is it you wish to evaluate in the group work process? You need to establish what group working skills, attitudes and behaviours are important and you expect to be displayed to know what questions you need to ask. Make sure these criteria and the standards are observable and measurable to the group members.

While many of these criteria are common to all group work situations, there may be some questions you wish to include that will help your students learn what is most valuable to your discipline and what that looks like. Race (2001), described this as What constitutes a ‘“good” attempt and what makes it a “good” attempt. These qualities will be reinforced from the time each student spends reflecting on:

their own performance and contribution
their teammates’ performance and contribution
the feedback they receive from other group members for their own collaborative impact on the group.

Likert or Divided points?

Likert questions are recommended as a default. They focus on group member achievements against standards rather than scores between students.

Division of points is a strategy used to have each team member make a judgement about the performance or contribution of each team member compared to other team members. It could be set up as just one question for a single category, or a number of different categories could be assessed, each with its own question or questions.

If your goal is to also provide your students with improved feedback about their teamwork skills, the Likert questions are a better choice and recommended in particular, for formative peer assessment. The Points division method of assessing student performance and contribution does not provide the individual with as much information about which behaviours are important in group work and therefore is less informative for teaching the essential skills. Nor does it provide the student with specific feedback on how they can improve (Ohland et al., 2012).

Peer questions

Click on + Create question or edit the preloaded questions by clicking on the pencil icon.

Click on the Peer question button.
(Optionally) move the toggle Motivation to request a student's explanation of their feedback.
(Optionally) move the toggle Motivation required to make a student's explanation of their feedback mandatory.
In the Question title textbox type the question title. This will be your criteria, e.g. timeliness, cooperation, quality of work etc.
In the Short name type the short name to find the question faster if you need to reuse it.
In the Description provide an explanation to the students on how they should rate their team members. E.g. for the criteria Contribution, you can add the following description: Please rate your own and your teammates' contributions to the project work.
In the Criteria add descriptors for the levels of achievement. E.g. for the criteria Contribution the descriptors might be:

5. High: Does work of a very high quality; makes important contributions that improve the team's work; helps teammates.
4. Medium-high (optional): Produces work of a good quality, and sometimes helps teammates.
3. Medium: Completes a fair share of the team's work with acceptable quality.
2. Medium-low (optional): Completes very little work.
1. Low: Does not do a fair share of the team's work. Delivers sloppy or incomplete work. Misses deadlines.

Click on the Create question button.

Team questions

Click on the Create question button.
Click on the Team question button.
Select the scale: Strongly Disagree - strongly agree OR None or Not at all - Very Much or Very Often.
In the Question title textbox type the question title.
In the Short name type the short name to find the question faster if you need to reuse it.
(Optionally) in the Description textbox explain what your students are required to do.
Add the sub-questions, which are the statements students will have to agree or disagree with.
Click on the Create question button.

Open questions

Open questions give students the opportunity to add more to their response than they can with either Likert or Points division questions, encouraging them to think more deeply about the assessment so they can qualify the scores they have given for each metric.

Move Open question toggle to the right.
(Optionally) check the Open questions are required checkbox.
Type your question in the textbox.
(Optionally) click on the +Add open question to add more questions.

Peer messages

Peer messages have their advantage in encouraging students to engage in deeper reflection for the feedback they develop for their peers; research shows that when students are required to explain the scores they have given, better peer assessment results.

A disadvantage is that many students may not be familiar with how to provide written feedback constructively, so good practice requires that you set expectations and share exemplars of constructive feedback to prevent unprofessional comments and to raise the quality of the feedback your students prepare. It may be prudent to have your students practice writing constructive feedback based on some scenarios before commencing the group work so they are familiar with what is required of them and how they should participate.

Your aim should be to foster a culture where group members know their responsibility is to convey to their peers their strengths, suggest areas for improvement and criticise constructively so each assessed group member is empowered to improve their capability. They can do this if the feedback they prepare is:

constructive – written in a positive tone, recognises strengths, identifies areas for improvement and suggests examples
specific – justified, easily translated into specific improvements
thorough – detailed and focused on contribution and performance within the group
balanced – avoids giving too much praise or criticism, highlights strengths and weaknesses
respectful – directed at the performance and contribution and not at the group member, considerate of the reviewee’s feelings.

(Adapted from Peer-assessment & self-evaluation, UOW)

IMPORTANT: If enabled, peer messages MUST be moderated before the results are released to the students. For more information on moderation please refer to Moderate peer messages guide.

Move Peer messages toggle to the right.
(Optionally) check Anonymous for receiving student checkbox.
(Optionally) check Strengths & Improvements checkbox.
(Optionally) check Peer messages are required.
Enter your instructions in the Instruction text textbox.