Student peer review: enhancing formative feedback with a rebuttal

Abstract

a Higher education development centre, university of otago, dunedin, new Zealand; b ecology degree Programme, university of otago, dunedin, new Zealand ABSTRACT This study examines the use of peer review in an undergraduate ecology programme, in which students write a research proposal as a grant application, prior to carrying out the research project. Using a theoretical feedback model, we compared teacher and student peer reviews in a double blind exercise, and show how students responded to feedback given by each group. In addition, students wrote a rebuttal for every feedback point before re-drafting and submission. Despite students claiming they could tell if the reviewer was a teacher or student, this was not always the case, and both student and teacher feedback was accepted on merit. Analysis of feedback types and rebuttal actions showed similar patterns between students and teachers. Where teachers differed slightly was in the use of questions and giving direction. Interviews with students showed the rebuttal was a novel experience, because it required a consideration of each comment and justification as to why it was accepted, partially accepted or rejected. Being a reviewer helped students to learn about their own work, and it changed the way they understood the scientific literature. In addition, some students transferred their new peer review skills to help others outside of the ecology programme.

Peer-review in practice: eight years of Aropä

“…Mulder et al (2014b) recommends adding one tutor reviewer to each submission, so as to address the common complaint from students about review quality variation. Harland et al (2017) included tutor-marking, stating explicitly that students did not know which comments came from peers and which from tutorsalthough students claimed they would be able to tell the difference and would "likely pay more attention to teacher comments because they were subject experts" (p806). The fact that reviewers are always anonymous in Aropä means tutors would need to explicitly identify themselves in the text of their reviews if knowledge of their status is required.…”

“…Topping (2009) highlights that one of the most important aspects of peer-review is that feedback is 'plentiful'. Harland et al (2017) point out that multiple reviews mean there is a chance conflicting opinions might be expressed; in their context (the review of an ecology research proposal grant application), such conflicts occur in real-world scenarios and so they are not concerned about this. Nicol et al (2014) suggest that receiving more reviews means students are more likely to get the feedback they need, rather than the feedback the teacher has chosen and has had time to create.…”

“…Allocating reviews according to topic (P8): Where allocations are made according to the submission topic, between-tags were more popular (2%) than withintags (0.5%). Harland et al (2017) comment that they allocated submissions to students who themselves had written on different topics (the Aropä 'between-tags' option), and found no problem in an ecology class with students not having sufficient "subject knowledge and …exposure to different ecological methods and paradigms" (p805) to be able to provide useful feedback. Nicol et al (2014) note that by allocating students to review submissions on the same topic, there is a greater chance students will reflect on their own work by comparison.…”

“…Topping (2005Topping ( , 2009), Nicol (2010)), self-reflection (e.g. Mulder et al (2014b), Harland et al (2017)), judgement making (e.g. Topping (1998), Nulty (2011)), skills of "giving and accepting criticism" (Mulder et al (2014b)), as well as helping in demystifying the marking process.…”

Use of Software Tools for Real-time Monitoring of Learning Processes: Application to Compilers subject.

“…To overcome this, some alternatives have been proposed such as rewarding the students for their attendance to classroom activities Bukoye (2017), involving students in the evaluation Valero (2010) Conde (2017) Harland (2017 or, more recently, to include gamification in the learning process Kapp (2012) Su (2015) Mauricio (2017.…”