Rethinking feedback practices in higher education: a peer review perspective

AbstractPeer review is a reciprocal process whereby students produce feedback reviews on the work of peers and receive feedback reviews from peers on their own work. Prior research has primarily examined the learning benefits that result from the receipt of feedback reviews, with few studies specifically exploring the merits of producing feedback reviews or the learning mechanisms that this activates. Using accounts of their experiences of peer review, this study illuminates students’ perceptions of the different learning benefits resulting from feedback receipt and feedback production, and, importantly, it provides insight into the cognitive processes that are activated when students construct feedback reviews. The findings show that producing feedback reviews engages students in multiple acts of evaluative judgement, both about the work of peers, and, through a reflective process, about their own work; that it involves them in both invoking and applying criteria to explain those judgements; and that it shifts control of feedback processes into students’ hands, a shift that can reduce their need for external feedback. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. It is argued that the capacity to produce quality feedback is a fundamental graduate skill, and, as such, it should receive much greater attention in higher education curricula.Keywords: peer reviewfeedbackhigher educationproducing feedback reviews AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank Dr Michela Clari of the University of Edinburgh for her many perceptive and constructive feedback comments which helped improve the quality of this manuscript. We would also like to thank JISC UK for funding the PEER Project which allowed us to research this topic, and for their further funding for the PEER Toolkit project. Details of these projects can be found at www.reap.ac.uk Last, and not least, we thank the Design Engineering students for providing such deep insight into the mental processes elicited by peer review activities. This went beyond what we had anticipated when we designed the survey and focus group protocols.