Experiences from peer review of lab reportsIs there a new way of effective feedback to students?

Experiences from peer review of lab reports Is there a new way of effective feedback to students?

Magnus Anderson, School of ICT, KTH

and

Maria Weurlander, School of ECE, KTH

• A few words about our study

• Experience it yourself !

• Discussions about how to proceed

History behind

2009 - Teaching assistants dissatisfied with report quality

2010 – Redesign of module using peer review

Increase student’s ability to self-assess their reports

Positive student response

2014 – Detailed student questionnaire about the module

Semi-statistical analysis on rating items (27 responses)

Contextual text analysis on free text answers

Most obvious result

”The classification scheme was important for my understanding of how to assess reports.”

A few testimonies

”To let us assess each other’s report was a good module. One should find as many errors as possible in the report and

then you learn how to think critically”

”It gives an opportunity to train how to make an assessment of someone else’s report. This also trains one’s own ability to

realize faults in the own writing.”

”The feedback that I got on my own report was very good, so I got an opportunity to improve my own report writing.”

How to use the classification scheme

Two-step procedure:

1. i) Read the report critically

ii) find errors and faults

iii) classify the severity of them.

(related to critical thinking?)

2. Sum up all the severities and make an

overall judgement on the report.

(related to assessment only?)

Try it yourself !

Critically review the handed out report. Make the first step!

i) Read the report critically

ii) find errors and faults

iii) classify the severity of them

Severity scale

Incorrect or misleading reporting (very serious)

Non-acceptable but not misleading reporting (serious)

Mistakes that need to be corrected (minor)

Acceptable reporting that can be improved (details)

Open discussions

What were your experiences when testing this?

Suggestions for how to proceed?