Learning by comparing: internal feedback and evaluative judgement in peer assessment with comparative judgement

A comparative judgement peer assessment (CJ-PA) pedagogical activity was implemented in a master’s course in early childhood education. At about mid-semester, students submitted a draft of their final essay and were required to make pairwise comparisons of their peers’ works, choosing the one they found better and commenting on the quality of the productions. Drawing on the concept of internal feedback, the study analyses how students engage in multiple forms of comparisons while participating in the CJ-PA activity. By qualitatively analysing longitudinal interviews conducted during the process, the study shows that both engaging in peer assessment by making CJ and receiving peer comments create internal feedback opportunities. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that evaluative judgement is central to internal feedback generation in CJ-PA. Indeed, by prompting students to make comparisons, CJ-PA fosters the identification of differences. It is then through an evaluative judgement process that students can make sense of the identified differences and determine what actions they should undertake to improve their own work. Overall, the findings suggest that CJ-PA shifts students from passive recipients of feedback to active arbiters of quality, fostering critical thinking and self-regulated learning.