Teaching Peer Review of Writing in a Large First-year Electrical and Computer Engineering Class: A Comparison of Two Methods

Abstract

Despite recognition of the importance of communication skills in electrical and computer engineering curricula, instructors are often reluctant or unwilling to include writing assignments in their courses. Furthermore, when these assignments are included they often do not allow for formative assessment through feedback and revision, key components of contemporary writing pedagogies. Engineering instructors often feel they lack adequate expertise to provide feedback; in large classes there simply may not be enough time due to the faculty to student ratio. One way to address these constraints while providing meaningful writing assignments to students is to use peer review in place of instructor review. Still, the question of how to teach effective peer review to students remains. This study uses an experimental approach to compare use of a handout based on the assignment developed collaboratively by course instructors and an expert writing teacher with the addition of an in-class workshop conducted by the writing teacher. Both methods allow for inclusion of formative assessment in the writing process in a large class where instructor feedback would not be possible. The handout-only method benefits from less required class time and institutional support. Student peer review comments were qualitatively categorized using characteristics identified from the composition literature and the mean numbers of comments in each category were compared between groups. Drafts in the in-class instruction group averaged slightly more comments in categories identified from the literature as higher quality comments and fewer in the less important categories. However, in all but one category, the differences between groups were not statistically significant. A follow-up survey was used to gauge student perceptions on various dimensions related to the peer review process.Perceptions were generally more positive in the in-class instruction group, but again the differences were not statistically significant. These results indicate that the handout-only method may be adequate for teaching peer review to first-year electrical and computer engineering students and indicate the need for further research in this area.

Technical Communication Instruction for Graduate Students: The Communication Lab vs, A Course

“…Strongly interconnected knowledge organizations distinguish experts from novices; are necessary for both effective recall and transfer; are built through contact with similar principles in diverse contexts [59,60] Single-context but advisors should refer back to general principles Multi-genre; repeated exposure to general principles; repeated grading rubric Peer coaching can be effective to scale the impact of teaching; peer coaches represent more "proximate and credible models" and can individualize instruction and feedback [59,62]; peer coaching can be cost effective; coaches must be well trained; see [40,[63][64][65] Very resource-slim, fully utilizes peer interaction; coaches can be selected by client, interchanged from session to session More resource intensive; uses more faculty/professional input; harder to match students and coaches…”

Peer Review and Reflection in Engineering Labs: Writing to Learn and Learning to Write

“…However, feedback, even when it is specific, is not always used; faculty sometimes labor over giving extensive feedback, only to have it ignored. One reason our feedback has limited impact is because we are not asking students to actually use it [42,43]; unless we require students to revise and improve their work [44], the feedback is may be taken as a value judgment of the student's writing ability, rather than as an opportunity to learn and grow as a writer [45][46][47].…”

“…Peer review. While peer review seems to be an appealing way to off-load grading time and effort onto students, faculty may worry that the feedback students receive from their peers will not be effective [43]; indeed, without training or structure, students may give superficial feedback ("Great job") or even poor feedback [43,48]. While there are many variants of peer review, here we focus on the role peer review can have in supporting the peer reviewer's own learning [49]meaning the value of peer review is for the person doing the reviewing [50][51][52].…”

A Preliminary Study on Supporting Writing Transfer in an Introductory Engineering Laboratory Course

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