The Use of Group Peer Assessment as a Student Engagement Strategy in Computing Education

Lesley May, Nick Mitchell, Nicky Danino

Abstract below ..

This research explores how the introduction of peer marking to an undergraduate module in Computing at UCLan (University of Central Lancashire) enabled the teaching team to motivate, engage, and influence the behaviour and expectations of new students (Barnett and Coate, 2005).

The Four Week Challenge (4WC) forms the first module that students in Computing encounter. It is run in full-time “burst mode” during the students’ first month at UCLan, with the start of regular teaching delayed until after this module. It is designed to lead students through a challenging (yet highly scaffolded) project to show them where their course could take them.

The students work in groups of six (Tunzelmann et al., 2003; Qurashi, 1993) on a series of incremental challenges. The ultimate goal for the groups is to build a sophisticated mobile phone game, market it online, and present it in an academic context.

We evaluate several different peer assessment activities conducted by students, both within their own groups and between groups. Some of it is formative, some summative; some informal and some formal. Since the 4WC aims to address issues of retention and engagement in Computing, the group assessment strategy is designed to contribute to an environment where the students feel supported by each other, and learn from each other (Springer, 1993).

Running the module as a team competition also enabled us to reinforce specific behaviours, including where groups approached the peer assessment tasks in a positive way, through the allocation of team points.

A questionnaire revealed that a high proportion of students felt that formative, less formal peer assessment helped their group confront and resolve issues, mainly to do with allocation of work and effort from group members. There was also a high proportion who felt that formal, summative peer assessment formed a positive and important part of the module. When it came to summative assessments which were double-blind marked by both staff and students for moderation purposes, we found that the average discrepancy in marks between staff and student groups was surprisingly small.

References

Barnett, R. & Coate, K. (2005) Engaging the Curriculum in Higher Education. Maidenhead, Society for Research in Higher Education and Open University.

Qurashi, M. M. (1993) 'Dependence of publication-rate on size of some university groups and departments in UK and Greece in comparison with NCI', USA. Scientometrics, 27, 19–38.

Springer, M.E. Stanne, S.S. Donovan (1999) 'Effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology: A meta-analysis'. Review of Educational Research, 69 (1) (1999), pp. 21–51.

Tunzelmann, M. R., Martin, B. & Geuna, A. (2003) The effects of size on research performance: a SPRU review. Report Prepared for the Office of Science and Technology, Department of Trade and Industry. Brighton: SPRU-Science and Technology Policy Research, The Freeman Centre, University of Sussex.