Quantifying the Impact of Peer Evaluations on Student Team Project Grading

This paper describes a 14.5-year-study of the impact of peer evaluations in construction management and construction engineering team projects on student grades. The study population encompassed over 1,200 graduate and undergraduate students that worked on 325 teams at two universities. It also covered degree programs accredited by two different bodies: the American Council for Construction Education (ACCE) and American Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). The study found that peer evaluations promoted equity in the assignment of individual grades for team projects. It also found that no substantial difference existed in the grading impact between degree level or degree type. It confirmed the results of previously published short-term studies that a simple summative method for calculating individual grades from the group grade and the peer evaluation furnished consistent results across all sample populations.