Enabling Student Feedback Literacy Through Peer Review Training

Introduction

Peer feedback is
a “reciprocal process whereby students produce feedback reviews on the work of
peers and receive feedback reviews from peers on their own work” (Nicol
et al., 2014). Very often, teachers create learning bottlenecks by forcing all
classroom interactions to pass through them.  However, if teachers
develop routines where students give support to each other’s learning in a
structured manner and increase the quality and frequency of student
interactions, learning will increase in a significant way (Leahy et al., 2005).
Furthermore, peer feedback moves the weight of the learning to the students,
driving them to take a greater ownership in their own learning. Similar to
other types of feedback, effective peer feedback also helps to surface any
misconceptions conceived by students and provides teachers with opportunities
for teachers to rectify these misconceptions.

The efficacy of peer feedback is diminished if
students lack the literacy to provide succinct, on point and clear feedback to
their peers. In this instance, student
feedback literacy is defined as “the
understandings, capacities and dispositions needed to make sense of information
and use it to enhance work or learning strategies” (Carless &
Boud, 2018). The underpinning framework
consists of a set of interrelated features (see Figure 1). 

Figure 1. Features
of student feedback literacy (Carless & Boud, 2018)

 Students with
well-developed feedback literacies appreciate their own active role in feedback
processes, are continuously developing capacities in making sound judgements
about academic work and manage affect in positive ways (Carless & Boud,
2018). If a student understands what needs to be done and diligently applies
effort to improve in these feedback process, then a positive upward spiral may
possibly occur, inducing an increase in confidence, growth mindset and
self-regulation. Thus, in this
article, we described an implementation of a peer review training session that
was targeted to equip our students with the skills of feedback literacy.

Peer Review Training Sessions

In preparation for the training sessions, we
referenced the framework proposed by Hattie and Timperley (2007). According to
the framework, feedback addresses three questions (i.e. “Where am I going?”,
“How am I going?” and “Where to next?”) and works at four levels: task,
process, self-regulation and self. Feedback at the self level focuses on the
individual and is least effective. Effective feedback should include the task
level that identifies what is correct or wrong, the process level that focuses
on the thinking process, and the self-regulation level that informs the student
on the actions that can be taken in order to improve. Moreover, feedback should
focus on the instructional rather than the correctional aspect. Figure 2 shows
the template that was created to help students frame their thinking and process
their feedback.

The first question “Where am I going?” means
that students have to understand the goals of the lesson. They need to first
make sense of the performance standards and requirements set by the teacher in
order to be able to judge their peers’ work against these standards and
requirements. This was taught through the use of rubrics, exemplars or marking
points. The second question “How am I going?” is
based on the quality of work produced. Students were taught and encouraged to
give their feedback at the task, process and/or self-regulation level, rather
than at the self level, when evaluating and penning down their feedback for
their peers. The third question “What do I do next?” refers to the action that
the student will now need to take to correct and improve himself/herself.
Students would discuss with their peers the feedback that they have received
and how they will correct their answers and improve their work. Students were
encouraged to make themselves accountable to one another on the actions that they
need to be taken.

We used a 4 A’s Approach: Appreciation,
Attitude, Ability and Action, to conduct the peer review workshop. The approach
was aligned with the feedback literacy model in Figure 1. In “Appreciation”,
the students were introduced to what feedback is, what are some ways feedback
can be given and why it is helpful to do feedback. In “Attitude”, the teachers
discussed with students how they should react to the constructive feedback that
has been given to them. In “Ability”, students were taught the four levels of
feedback and how to give effective feedback. In “Action”, students practiced
giving effective feedback on sample students’ answers given by the teachers.
The practice activity helped the students gain confidence before an actual  review
of their peer’s work. Figure 3 showed a sample worksheet with peer comments.

Figure 4
showed a sample of peer comments provided by students that was done in
Googledocs. Figure 5 showed a practical worksheet in which student scored the
peer’s work against a mark scheme and annotated on the peer’s script (marking
point was satisfied / not satisfied / what went wrong). A second set of scoring
annotations was done by the teacher.

Conclusion

We
observed that students were enthusiastic during the peer review sessions. They
were very participative, serious and deliberate with what they wrote as
feedback to their peers’ work. We also
noted that many students made the effort to clarify with their classmates about
their answers and the peer comments given. This led to more discussion, even
beyond the class time. This suggested that the practice of peer review could
lead to increased student-to-student interactions and helpful intellectual
discourse on the subject matter. In addition, we collected data on students’
self-appraisal in feedback literacy. An analysis of the data indicated that the
peer review training workshop had a positive impact on students in
the areas of making judgement and managing affect. The results were mixed for
appreciating feedback and there was minimal impact on the area of taking
action.

It was
important to note that the accuracy of the peer feedback depended on the
competency of the peer. However, even when invalid feedback was given, the
conversations and clarification process helped to surface the misconceptions
which would be immediately rectified. It was also critical to create a
non-threatening, safe and respectful learning environment so that students feel
comfortable to provide feedback for each other. Furthermore, the structure of
the peer review sessions made the students more task-oriented and
time-conscious in their work. However, due to time constraints, we felt
that the full outcome of the training may
not be observable yet. Overall, we felt that the peer review
training has benefited the students.

References

Carless, D., & Boud, D. (2018). The development of
student feedback literacy: enabling uptake of feedback. Assessment
& Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(8), 1315-1325..

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of
feedback. Review of educational research, 77(1),
81-112.

Leahy,
S., Lyon, C., Thompson, M., & Wiliam, D. (2005). Classroom assessment: Minute by minute,
day by day. Assessment, 63(3), 19-24.

Nicol, D., Thomson, A., & Breslin, C. (2014). Rethinking
feedback practices in higher education: a peer review perspective. Assessment
& Evaluation in Higher Education, 39(1), 102-122.