Peer and Self‐assessment at Tertiary Level ‐‐ an experiential report

ABSTRACT One of the indicators of quality in undergraduate education is the extent to which self‐learning ability is nurtured. The authors have experimented with several approaches, some of which are reported in this paper. One part of the process of improving self‐learning ability lies in learning how to judge the quality of the work of others objectively and hence, eventually, one's own; another lies in finding and collating materials on a given topic in order to present it to others in note form, as an essay or as a brief ‘lecture’. Results are presented showing high correlations between students’ and lecturers’ assessments of individual essays and presentations. The paper addresses the need for these approaches to be made in absorbable and achievable steps, to build student confidence from experience and to give feedback to the students at each stage. Feedback concerning student opinion on the methods will be reported. The effect of students working in groups to give presentations or to make self‐ and peer assessments is also discussed. These approaches claim to maintain quality with increases in cohort sizes as education resource providers try to obtain improved productivity.