Peer-assessment provides students with multiple benefits during their learning process.The aim of our study is to examine students' perception of peer-assessment.Questionnaires were administered before and after the peer-assessment process to 416 students studying eleven different subjects in four different fields taught at the University of Girona. Results suggest that students have a positive predisposition towards this methodology, both before and after its implementation. Students perceive it as both a motivating and recommended methodology that facilitates the acquisition of learning at different levels. As for its limitations, students highlight the responsibility that comes with it and a certain amount of distrust in fellow students' abilities to peerassess.
The viability of irrigated systems in Southern Europe is closely linked to efficient institutional settings and water-allocation mechanisms. A significant, although not widely used, mechanism for water allocation is an intra-sectorial water market. The objective of this paper is to evaluate to what extent water markets may contribute to the improvement of the efficiency of water allocation and to the profitability of irrigated agriculture. The related issues of water allocation among farm types and farm specialisation are also addressed. The analysis is based on a basin-level linear programming model, comparing the situation with and without a market. It includes both fixed and variable transaction costs and estimates their combined effects on market performances. The model is applied in two areas in Southern Italy and Spain, and simulates the behaviour of different farm types, derived from cluster analysis on a sample of farms in each area. The paper confirms that water markets could potentially improve the economic efficiency of water use, in terms of higher profit per hectare, given limited water availability. The potential improvements are associated with a more intense specialisation of farms and are strongly differentiated among farmers, particularly where significant restrictions to water availability occur. This corroborates the expectations of institutional difficulties in implementing water markets. However, the exchanges, and consequently the potential effects of water markets, are heavily affected by the actual level of water availability, as well as the size and the structure (fixed vs. proportional) of transaction costs. The paper calls for a more in-depth analysis of the connections between market performances and institutional settings, as related to the issue of water-agriculture policy design and coordination.
Teamwork is one of the most important competences for most professionals, and it is therefore imperative that it be included in university education programmes, yet its evaluation continues to pose challenges. This paper reports on part of a study into the self and peer evaluation of teamwork, research which was carried out in order to analyse teamwork dynamics among students on degree courses in different disciplines, and how these relate to the outcome of teamwork and the grades obtained by each team member. The views of 351 students studying five subjects on five different degree courses were analysed, with participants divided into 95 groups. The results show that effective teamwork is related to higher grades and higher quality products. The weighting of the grade awarded to teamwork in the final subject grade conditions students' assessment of how well the team has functioned, as does the grade each student receives from their teammates. Those teams that view their team as functioning best distribute equal grades among their teammates. The results also show that those students who assess themselves positively do the same for their peers.
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