Quantitative Peer Assessment: Can students be objective?

Herbert, N.

Team work can have a positive impact on student learning and commitment, but it is challenging to determine a method of assessment that does not require lecturers to involve themselves intimately with each team. Team members are often the best source of meaningful data, and as a result, lecturers are including self and peer assessment. One method of peer assessment is to have team members quantify their own contribution and that of team members. Concerns have been raised in the literature about distribution patterns with this method of peer assessment. An online peer assessment system has been capturing data from a capstone project course for three years with over 24 teams and 100 students each year. This paper analyses the following questions: do students take the easy option of equal distribution to avoid conflict, are students honest about their own contribution, are females treated fairly and are international students unfairly discriminated against. 1

Cite as: Herbert, N. (2007). Quantitative Peer Assessment: Can students be objective?. In Proc. Ninth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2007), Ballarat, Australia. CRPIT, 66. Mann, S. and Simon, Eds. ACS. 63-71.

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