Key findings:

- "It is relatively straight forward to assess the products of student group work. The hard part is to asses the group work itself, and the relative contribution of individual members of the group to the development of the assessed product" (p.17).
- "When it comes to measuring individuals relative contribution to group work, the only people who really know what the relative contributions are, are the students themselves (p.17).

Key findings:

- Very few people have a neutral view on assessment
- "At the start of the their learning journey students ask their tutors questions like; is this what you mean? By the end of the journey, students are asking questions of themselves and seeking self justification for what they have learned" (p. 26).

Reference:

Orsmond P. 2004. Self-and Peer Assessment: Guidance on practice in the Biosciences. Available online at: http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/ftp/TeachingGuides/fulltext.pdf, [accessed 14.02.08].

Key findings:

- Peer marking improved student marks
- Students who were involved with peer assessment learned how to improve their work through he peer assessment process.
- Peer assessment saves staff time.
- Students weren’t able to produce reliable assessment scores on their own essays.
- Students were slightly harder on the marks given to verbal presentations than staff.

Reference:
Hughes, I.E., 2001. 'But isn't this what you're paid for? The pros and cons of peer and self assessment', Planet, 2, p. 20-23.

Key findings:

- "It was important that the peer assessment application; was easy to use; supported a process of double blind peer review; could check for plagiarism; supported student grading and supported free text feedback." (p.3)
- "Both the lecturer and students found turnitin easy to work with." (p.10)
- Double blind review may contribute to more objective and reliable scoring.
- "Student found summative peer assessment educationally valuable and gave confidence in their peers as assessors." (p.10)

Reference:

Key findings:

- Students bunched marks in a narrow range

Reference:

Cheng, W. & Warren, M. (1999). Peer and teacher assessment of the oral and written tasks of a group project. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 24(3), 301-314.

Key findings:

- Students were mostly in favour of peer assessments.
- Students involvement is crucial at every stage of the assessment (p.238).
- There are good reasons both pedagogically and psychologically in giving training to students and in discussing and establishing the assessment criteria (p.239).

Reference:

Cheng, W. & Warren, M. (1997). Having second thoughts: Student perceptions before and after a peer assessment exercise. Studies in Higher Education, 22(2), 233-239.