Peer-assessment is closely related to self-assessment but focuses directly on students providing feedback and/or making judgements of other students’ work. Many of the benefits that have been listed for self-assessment practices apply to peer-assessment, but the additional advantages of peer-assessment are the collaborative practices that this involves. It also enables students to get a wider range of views on their assessment practices from a diverse audience Like self-assessment practices, peer-assessment needs to be well supported.
Students will need adequate training and guidance in peer-assessment, with explicit and detailed information about criteria and procedures, the purpose of the task and what is expected of them. Rubrics are a useful tool for representing and supporting assessment criteria.
Peer-assessment is often a used in group/team based approaches to learning and can be used informally as part of group learning activities through to summative assessment. It can take on many different forms and be used for a range of different assessment tasks. It can be used for providing feedback and/or assessing individual work as well as group activities. It can be done openly and shared with the class or anonymously.
There are a number of online tools that are available now which will assist students in peer-review practices and some of these are built into learning management systems.