Peer, professor and self-evaluation of class participation

The purpose of this project was to determine the validity of peer and self-evaluations of class participation compared to professors' class participation grades. Students (N = 96) evaluated themselves and their classmates on class participation on a four-point scale and students were required to assign grades in a normalized distribution. Relative to faculty evaluations, the bias and precision of the peer grades were 0.48 points and 36.3 per cent (p < 0.05) and self-evaluations scores were -0.48 and 77.5 per cent (p < 0.05).There was no correlation between a student's grade point average and his/her opinion of this process (R = 0.02). Students did not like peer assessment using forced distribution of grades.