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Self & Peer Assessment

What is it?

SPA was developed within the Office of Learning and Teaching in conjunction with several faculty academics in order to simplify the process of facilitating self and peer assessment of the teamwork process. There are essentially two types of self and peer assessment:

  • The product. This is where students evaluate a student-produced product against a set of criteria. For example, students might be tasked with developing a poster and other students can evaluate each other’s work against specific criteria.
  • The process. This is where students evaluate one another’s contributions to the team-work process. For example students produce a product as part of a team work activity and then evaluate how each member of the team contributed.
Both of these types can be valuable formative activities for the students although self and peer assessment of the team-work process has traditionally been difficult to facilitate.

The SPA project was developed to alleviate the difficulties in facilitating self and peer assessment of the team-work process. SPA is a small web-based system that:

  • Gathers Moodle student and group information
  • Provides a pool of evaluation questions based on self and peer assessment literature.
  • Facilitates template emails and progress monitoring.
  • Produces comprehensive reports.

Why would I use it?

Self and peer assessment can be advantageous as it:

  • Increases the students’ sense of responsibility and autonomy around group assessment.
  • Promotes active learning and can help reduce passive learning.
  • Encourages students to think about their role and contribution to the group-work process.
  • Can help reduce the ‘free-rider’ problem, as students know their contribution with be assessed by their peers.

Additionally, SPA is linked with Moodle. This saves considerable time as student and group information is automatically extracted from Moodle.

How can I use it in my learning and teaching and how can I get more information?

If you wish to use self and peer assessment in you course or program or simply want to know more about it, send an email to ed-dev@cqu.edu.au

The SPA project team

Damien Clark (OLT), Colin Beer (OLT), Rolley Tickner (OLT), Kate Ames (FABIE), Jim Callan (FABIE), Cynthia Cowling (FSEH).