Gómez Muñoz, Beatriz

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12Organizing peer-feedback for a group reportBeatriz Gómez MuñozDepartment of Plant and Environmental SciencesUniversity of CopenhagenIntroductionThe assessment of the learning process can be done in two different ways:summative (certification purpose) or formative (learning purpose). Sum-mative feedback is the evaluation of the students’ learning at the end ofthe course or project, whereas formative feedback is the monitoring of thestudents’ learning during the learning process, so both students and teach-ers can use the feedback to improve its learning and teaching respectively.Formative feedback is described as an efficient means of stimulation andenhancing student learning in education systems (Black, 2015).Feedback is an essential element on the learning process, which allowsstudents to reflect on their own learning, identifying weaknesses to improveit and providing the students the opportunity to self-assess their skills andcapabilities. Furthermore, it is insufficient to provide feedback only at theend of the course of project that tells students what they did wrong. Fortu-nately, the provision of feedback had substantially changed in the last years,from a passive student receiving feedback from the teacher, to a more activeparticipation of the student in the feedback process.Feedback can be very diverse, including individual feedback, genericfeedback, informal feedback, self-evaluation or peer feedback, and themethod to deliver the feedback can be written feedback, annotations, oralfeedback or seminar discussion. Moreover, feedback can be given by tu-tors, mentor or peer. Peer feedback involves students giving feedback toeach other to grade their work or performance using relevant criteria (Boud,Cohen, & Sampson, 1999), so the students learn from both giving and re-136 Beatriz Gómez Muñozceiving feedback. Several studies have reported the benefit of the peer feed-back (Liu & Carless, 2006; Topping, 2009; Van den Berg, Admiraal, & Pi-lot, 2006; Wheater, Langan, & Dunleavy, 2005). According to Falchikov(Falchikov, 2013) the benefits of peer feedback for students are: i) highquality learning (higher transfer of learning, reflection, better understandof the assessment criteria and better understand of the concept from seeingother students’ successes and weaknesses), ii) skills development (negoti-ation and work cooperatively), iii) personal development (higher responsi-bility, autonomy and independence), and iv) affective disposition (higherstudent confidence and motivation and less stress). While the peer feed-back also has some benefits for the teachers, because peer-feedback is anefficient and effective way to monitor the progress of the students reducingthe lecturer workload and provide and extra feedback to the students.The aim of this study was to investigate how the implementation of apeer-feedback activity on written reports in groups influences the learningprocess, and what is the students’ perception in giving and receiving feed-back from their colleagues.MethodologyIn this year 2017/2018, I taught in Environmental Impact Assessmentcourse (EIA) (LNAK10010U) that is a 7.5 ECTS course taught in block4 and offered in seven different MSc programmes at Copenhagen Univer-sity (UPCH). The aim of the course is to introduce the components and thestructure of an Environmental Impact Assessment, as well as discuss hownational guidelines and requirements for EIA influence the outcome. Dur-ing the course, students work in-group in six exercises on the same case(road construction in Zambia). Every exercise is about one of the steps thata consultant has to follow when carry out a real EIA report. In all theseexercises, the teachers give feedback to the students. After that, studentshave to develop two reports for the exam. The first report is the Term ofReference (ToR), which is the document that sets out what the EIA reporthas to cover, the type of the information to be submitted, and the depthof analysis that is required. In this case, every group develops the Term ofReference for a different project. Later, we swap the ToR between groups,so they have to develop a full EIA report on a different project based on theToR elaborated from another group. Both reports are the written part of theexam, where there is also an individual oral exam where both reports and12 Organizing peer-feedback for a group report 137some general questions on the EIA process are discussed with the student.After the oral exam, the teachers provide feedback for both reports the ToRand the EIA for the group.In general, the students evaluations from the course in the previousyears are good, but they claimed for more feedback during the course.Therefore, the development of peer-review session in the ToR could pro-vide some benefits for the students because they receive more feedback inthe report that is part of the oral exam, but also they can learn from the revi-sion of similar reports, and the revision can also help the students to identifyweaknesses in their own reports. During the planning of this course, the ac-tivity was discussed with the previous teacher of the course who taught thepart of the course that I teach this year, but also with the other teacher of thecourse. Both of them have been running the course for more than 10 yearsand they agreed that the peer-review session is a good activity that can helpthe students to learn how to develop a good ToR. They also suggested theimportance of giving a guideline to the students on how to carry out a goodrevision.Two weeks before the exam when the students were working on theEIA report, I did a peer-feedback session. For this session, 24 students werepresent. Firstly, I did a short introduction explaining the rationale and thebenefits of having a peer-review. After, I gave the exercise instructions and Igave the students a guideline (Appendix A) on how to develop the revision,and which criteria or questions they have to follow to review the Term ofReference based on the requirements for this report and the ILOs of thecourse. Finally, when all the revised reports were uploaded in Absalon,I handed out a questionnaire to the students (Appendix B) to evaluate theactivity and get their perception of giving and receiving feedback for a peer.Results and ReflectionsDuring the peer-feedback session, students worked actively revising theircolleague’s reports, and showing a good acceptation of the activity. The re-sults from the questionnaire showed that the peer-review activity helps thestudents to understand better the purpose of the ToR report, being around70% of the students agreed (4-5) with this statement (Figure 12.1a). Simi-larly, around 87% of the students manifested that also the peer-review activ-ity helped them to identify weaknesses in their own report (Figure 12.1b).The students also learnt different ways to develop a ToR with the revision138 Beatriz Gómez Muñozof the others colleagues’ ToR (Figure 12.1c). These three statements con-firmed that the review of similar report helps the students to understandbetter the purpose and required information to develop a good ToR.The next statement was if the peer-review activity helped the studentsto learn how to evaluate a ToR, around 42% replied that they did not agreeor disagree, whereas 50% of them said that they agreed with this statement(Figure 12.1d). This statement reveals that even the peer-revision is a goodexercise for students to learn how to evaluate a report; they need more train-ing and practices on how to evaluate a report, which is also an essential skillas an EIA consultant.The next statement was about how general were the feedback obtainedfor the students, and in this case, the responses were more homogeneous(Figure 12.1e), suggesting more specific details should be given to the stu-dents on how specific should be the comments in the introduction of theexercise. The last two questions revealed that most of the students (70%)agreed with the statement that the feedback from their peer help them tounderstand better the purpose of ToR (Figure 12.1f), and around 90% saidthat the peer-review activity helped them to identify weaknesses in the ToR.These statements suggest that in general most of the students were satisfiedwith the feedback that they received from their colleagues and were pos-itive for the learning process. Later, in the next open question about whatwas the most useful part of the peer-review, the students said that the activ-ity was very useful to see different ways of doing the same, and to identifystrengths and weaknesses in the colleagues’ report but also in their ownreport (Appendix C). Finally, in the statement on how to improve the ac-tivity, some of the students suggested that they would like to have an extratime to discuss the feedback given, or even to give a short presentation,whereas some of them claimed for more specific feedback or more detailedinformation about how to it.In the course, it was not possible to correct and handle the report againbecause the report was part of the oral exam. However, in the oral exam allthe students answered all the questions about the ToR well, showing thatalthough the report did not get the higher grade, they students knew theprocess, the purpose and the relevant information to make a good ToR.12 Organizing peer-feedback for a group report 139Fig. 12.1. Percentage of students responding the statement described in x-axe (fromdisagree to agree, 1-5) for the questions: a) The peer-review help me to understandbetter the purpose of the ToR, b) The peer-review help me to identify weaknessesin my own ToR, c) I have learnt different ways to develop ToR, d) The peer-reviewexercise show me how to evaluate a report, e) The feedback from my peer are verygeneral, f) The feedback from my peer help me to understand better the purpose ofthe ToR, and g) My peer help me in identifying weaknesses in my ToR.140 Beatriz Gómez MuñozConclusion and PerspectivesIt can be concluded that the peer-review activity is a good exercise to give aformative assessment to the students, where the students get more feedbackwithout an increase in the workload of the teachers. Giving feedback topeer makes the students to see others options to develop similar reports, butalso to reflect and be critical with their own reports, identifying weaknessesand strength in their own report. The results of the questionnaire show thatstudents would like to have some time to discuss with their reviewer thefeedback. Furthermore, for the future I would allocated more time to thepeer-feedback including some extra time for discuss the feedback. Finally,to successfully use the peer-activity more specific instruction on how spe-cific the comments should be must be given to the students.ReferencesBlack, P. (2015). Formative assessment–an optimistic but incomplete vi-sion. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 22(1),161–177.Boud, D., Cohen, R., & Sampson, J. (1999). Peer learning and assessment.Assessment & evaluation in higher education, 24(4), 413–426.Falchikov, N. (2013). Improving assessment through student involvement:Practical solutions for aiding learning in higher and further educa-tion. Routledge.Liu, N.-F., & Carless, D. (2006). Peer feedback: The learning element ofpeer assessment. Teaching in Higher education, 11(3), 279–290.Topping, K. J. (2009). Peer assessment. Theory into practice, 48(1), 20–27.Van den Berg, I., Admiraal, W., & Pilot, A. (2006). Designing student peerassessment in higher education: Analysis of written and oral peerfeedback. Teaching in Higher Education, 11(2), 135–147.Wheater, C. P., Langan, A. M., & Dunleavy, P. J. (2005). Students assessingstudent: Case studies on peer assessment. Planet, 15(1), 13–15.12 Organizing peer-feedback for a group report 141APeer-Feedback Exercise on Term of References - EnvironmentalImpact AssessmentGuideline:1. Please read carefully the report to review.2. Use pdf comments option to evaluate the ToR3. Please remark/comment any positive or negative aspect that you con-sider in the ToR4. Please describe the strengths and weaknesses of the ToR5. Suggestions for improvement.6. Further commentsQuestions to consider:1. Does the ToR follow the standard structure including at least: Objectiveand background, activities, impact identification, boundaries of study,staff and timing?2. Are the objective and background detailed enough to understand theproject?3. Are the main activities and impact identifies in the ToR?4. How adequate are the boundaries of study?5. Are the provision for staff and timing realistic?6. Is there any mention to an alternatives or public involvement provision?142 Beatriz Gómez MuñozB12 Organizing peer-feedback for a group report 143CStudents answers for the open questions 8 and 9 from thequestionnaire (Appendix B)8 What was the most useful part of the review process?1. To have an idea on what we miss in our ToR2. It was very good with the review questions that we can use to givefeedback to the ToR3. To see different ways of doing ToR, what to specify and where putemphasis on, etc.4. To see how someone else did the ToR, and to repeat the necessary partsof an ToR5. It was useful to consider the ToR and five feedback6. Getting an opinion from other point of view and seeing their perceptionof ToR7. The review process allowed me to reflect on what the other group didwell that we could have also incorporated. It is useful to see differentapproach to the ToR structure8. Learning about weaknesses and strengths is helpful for future reports9. Good exercise with giving and receiving comments, to have a clearerpicture of our own ToR and the other group´s ToR. Also good that allthe comments are available for all of us.10. I think that talking with my groupmates about the others ToR and seethe different opinions. I have like to have a review of our ToR and allthe rest from the different groups.11. To see what other groups’ opinion and also when we evaluated othergroups´ feedback, we evaluated ourselves at the same time12. It points out parts of our report that we would not have seen otherwise.Good to have an external voice.13. To have several people reviewing to get more comment, even thoughsome of them contradicted each other14. To get different view on how different people write a ToR, to get gen-eral feedback, and to get other people view on you work, you learn howto do it better next time144 Beatriz Gómez Muñoz15. To know the structure of the ToR16. Even though getting feedback is scary, good to acknowledge weak-nesses that you can improve on17. It forces you to reflect on your own ToR and its strengths and weak-nesses, good exercise prior to the exam18. Identifying weaknesses, what information is useful?19. The possibility of comparing my ToR with a different one what I willneed to sue for the EIA in a critical way.20. Having to look all the papers objectively and try to find both strengthand weaknesses of the report21. To think about different aspect more in –depth and to be trusted inhaving an evaluator´s perspective22. Finding discrepancies in what we say in introduction/purpose/descriptionand the rest of the project9 What could have been done better?1. Specify whether we are supposed to do it in groups or by ourselves.2. An actual presentation would have been interesting. Meaning gettingquestion from the review group3. More focus and repetition of necessary parts and objective of a ToR4. Have more time to talk with the people who has reviewed our ToR5. More of a conversation between groups might be nice6. Maybe a small and short presentation of each review in front of theeverybody to share with the rest7. Maybe give an opportunity for feedback group and original groups totalk and discuss it8. Some of the comment could have been more specific9. Shorter time, it took really long time for the different group to get done10. To actually talk with the other group to understand their rationale andhear their defence for it.11. More specific questions to evaluate/consider for each section12. More specific guidelines for the ToR assignment itself would havemake a review process more streamlined12 Organizing peer-feedback for a group report 14513. Maybe discussion in class all together random parts of each ToR14. Maybe we could have prepared some in advance; that said being“forced” to doing it within a very short time, is an exercise in itself15. More detailed feedback on specific things

Organizing peer-feedback for a group report

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