Why Students Have Conflicts in Peer Assessment? An Empirical Study of an Online Peer Assessment Community

Abstract

This study highlights the issues in the process of peer assessment in an online environment. As an interactive learning platform, peer assessment will likely lead to conflicts among students, which will hinder the sustainability of peer assessment learning environments. It is still unclear about the particular factors that influence and cause the behavioral conflicts which arise within learning groups and learning environments. To overcome this issue, the current study explores why peer assessment could trigger conflict over a student's task. The results of a negative binomial regression model with user fixed effects indicate that student's knowledge self-efficacy, cognitive diversity of general knowledge, and network density have a positive impact on task conflict. Interactive experience and cognition diversity of specific knowledge are not powerful motivations for task conflict in the peer assessment. The findings of this study may be helpful for educators in understanding why students have task conflict in a specific learning environment.