Peer Assessment of Teacher Performance. What Works in Teacher Education?

Abstract

which rely on peers as a source of information and collaborative learning are still scarce (Charalambous, Hill and Ball, 2011, Ratminingsih, Artini and Padmadewi, 2017). Indeed, the evidence supporting PA is less robust than other types of assessment in the educational field (Li et al. 2020), which constitutes a research problem, not only for teacher educators bur for decision-makers in this field. The studies which form the subject of this review, focus on pre-service teachers (PST) teaching performance-rather than on more typical peer-assessed tasks such as written assignments (e.g. Tsai, Lin and Yuan, 2002). Although other prior reviews of PA exist (e.g., Gielen, Dochy, and Onghena, 2010; Li et al. 2020; van Zundert et al. (2010)), these are not focused on teaching performance nor were developed for teacher education. Hence, the present review analyzes a more specific area. Its purpose is to orient stakeholders to critical aspects of the design of PA in teacher education which are empirically based and focused on issues that require further research in order to gain sufficient understanding. We start by defining PA, its benefits and disadvantages, followed by the essential organizational features and its implementation. After this, the reviewed studies are discussed in terms of outline trends and connection of principles for PA in pre-service teachers and practical implications for working PA in teacher education.