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Overview of Group Peer Assessment

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Peer assessment can be used as part of a multifaceted approach to improve group work. Please learn more about using digital tools in peer assessment.

The PETS (Proactively Ensuring Team Success), a structured process, includes a number of inter-related actions:

  • purposeful allocation of students to teams based on a team skills inventory and/or prior knowledge of student attributes
  • student self-assessment of teamwork attributes
  • explicit student skill development in team dynamics using classroom learning, mentoring and assessment
  • tailored project features and assessment
  • individual and team structured reflection
  • anonymous peer evaluation and assessment of team members
  • team mentoring and monitoring

Reference: Working in Teams: A Practical Guide

Kavanagh, L., Harrison, J., Cokley, J., and Neil, D. (2010) Proactively Ensuring Team Success: A guide to effective student project teams in higher education, Instructors Manual

Things to Consider

When using the Group Peer Assessment tool you need to determine whether:

  • you will use the Likert or PAF question type
  • the assessment will be formative or summative
  • if the assessment is formative, what interventions you will put in place to support dysfunctional groups
  • the results will be used to adjust group marks or only as information.

You will also consider:

  • moderation of the student responses.
  • how to clearly explain the peer assessment process and moderation process to students and document it in the Course Profile.

Likert Option

With the Likert option students evaluate peers' contribution to group work by answering Likert scale criteria questions. The tool will calculate the Average Score each student receives from all other group members for all criteria.

The tool facilitates the moderation of results to remove unjustified scores and recalculates the Average Score.

Warning: It is recommended that results are moderated if they are going to be used for summative assessment.

Likert use example

Student’s group assignment mark + Average GPAT score

Divided points

With the Divided points option students are asked to evaluate peers' individual contributions to the group work by splitting 100 marks between the members of the group, including themselves for the criteria set by the course coordinator.

The tool facilitates the moderation of results to remove unjustified scores and recalculates the PAF.

Warning: It is recommended that results are moderated if they are going to be used for summative assessment.

PAF use example

The PAF (Peer Assessment Factor), if generated through a moderated process, can be used as a measurement of student contribution to a group assignment. PAF can be used to adjust students individual group assignment results.

i.e. If the group assignment receives a mark of 80 out of 100 and students receive PAFs of

Student 1: 0.85

Student 2: 1.00

Student 3: 1.10

Student 4: 0.95

Student 1’s assignment mark = 0.85 x 80 = 68

Student 2’s assignment mark = 1.00 x 80 = 80

Student 3’s assignment mark = 1.10 x 80 = 88

Student 4’s assignment mark = 0.95 x 80 = 76