Difficult times in Psychology: Group Work, Peer Assessment

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Difficult times in PsychologyGroup Work, Peer
Assessment Assessment for LearningDr. Delia
WakelinDr. Lynn McInnes

• APT funded

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Project aims

• To learn PowerPoint
• Assign topic areas which were difficult since
  believed that teaching is good way to learn
• Use peer assessment
• Develop criteria for peer assessment through
  student contribution on Blackboard
• Use student assessment of group contribution
• Make use of assessment as a means to enhance
  learning

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What the students did

• Mostly self selected groups
• Topic taken from list we generated sample
  without replacement
• Researched, learnt powerpoint
• Submitted learning contract
• Used blackboard discussion board to develop
  criteria
• Did presentation
• Rated each member of group for contribution
• Peer evaluation of other groups

• Statistics
• Bb on discussion
• Contribution to group
• questionnaires

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Discussion board - hits

• Mean 1.79

Bimodal distribution of discussion board use,
most did minimal, but some (25 ) did a fair bit
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How difficult did you find learning PowerPoint

• Mean 1.75

Most students found PowerPoint very easy to
learn, they may already be skilled.
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Working in Groups

• score for interest unfair because topic was not a
  choice
• subjects for presentation should have been
  randomly allocated
• the topics that they were left with were boring
• unfair had to be put in another group

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Group evaluation Frandsen http//www.stedwards.
edu/cte/resources/grub.htm
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Contribution

• Mean 4.13

Students dont like to say that it shouldnt be
equally weighted still havent cracked
this c.f. previous attempt for student to keep
online log
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Did group work assist your learning

• Mean 3.36

Students did find that group work assisted their
learning
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3. Peer assessment student aims

• Reflect on peer assessment
• Contribute to the development of an assessment
  for PowerPoint presentations
• play an active and public role in the assessment
  process.
• gain ownership of the assessment procedure.

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PRESENTATION EVALUATIONS

• very
  poor ? very good
• 
  1 ? 7
• Content understanding
• Interest
• Time
• Structure and continuity
• Visual aids
• Non-verbal behaviour
• Vocal delivery
• Interaction with audience
• Enthusiasm
• Overall presentation

Pretty much the same as ours Most contributors
wanted lecturers to assess
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criteria

• Non-verbal behaviour
• Were facial expressions, gestures and posture
  appropriate?
• Was there eye contact with the audience?
• What impression did they give you?
• Vocal delivery
• Was the presentation audible in terms of volume
  and clarity?
• Was it too loud or too soft?
• Was it clear or mumbled?
• Did the presentation have intonation or was it
  flat and monotonous?
• Was there variety in the pace of delivery?
• Was it fluent or hesitant?
• Was it at the right pace, or too slow or too
  fast?
• Interaction with audience
• Did they respond to the audience?
• Did you feel involved?
• Any handouts?
• Did they encourage questions?
• Did they respond to questions (if any)?
• 9. Enthusiasm

• Content understanding
• Was the presentation informative?
• Was the presentation understandable?
• Were the ideas clearly explained?
• Interest
• Was the presentation interesting?
• Did it hold your attention?
• Time
• Was the presentation completed in the time limits
  (10 12 minutes)?
• Was the time used effectively?
• Structure and continuity
• Did the presentation have a clearly defined
  structure?
• Did it appear that the presentation had been
  planned (prior teamwork)
• Did the ideas and themes of the presentation link
  together?
• Was it structured for continuity and flow?
• Was it introduced and concluded well?
• Visual aids
• Were the visual aids clear, legible, informative
  and interesting?
• Were they used appropriately?

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Did peer evaluation assist you in preparing

• Mean 2.73

Views of peer evaluation were fairly mixed.
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Peer assessment

• peer assessment bad, unfair, biased
• hate peer assessment as biased,
• peer assess good but biased
• against peer assessment as not qualified
• assessment poor could have ulterior motives

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How difficult was the content you had to present

• Mean 2.57

Although we wanted difficult topics, the
students generally perceived them as relatively
easy
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Did presenting the material help you to learn it

• Mean 3.79

students did feel that presenting the material
helped them learn it.
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Comments on value of presentation for learning

• Good way of learning
• research in depth, good means of giving info good
  for communication skills helps to get to know
  others
• Helps learning but induces stress, it was nerve
  racking and scary
• helps learn but easy to forget info. did not
  reflect how much hard work was put in

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Did the learning contract help you in preparing
your work

• Mean 2.53

And they did not feel that the learning contract
was particularly helpful
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Suggestions? large groups sharing marks

• Shared group mark with six members could award
  300 and say this should be divided by students
  which works out at 50 each - what happens?
• Leave it to the students, they are in the best
  position to know who deserves the mark ? We
  found dont deviate
• Other strategies suggested e.g. sort of
  learning contract ? or more explicit splitting ?
• Habeshaw, Gibbs, Habeshaw

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large groups sharing marks

• shared group grade -
• some agree to share at outset
• others argue about criteria near end
• others will decide on criteria (peer assessment
  criteria)
• can mark various assessment criteria
• attendance
• contribution, researching, supporting,
  cooperation
• David Jaques learning in groups

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Future? large groups alternative assessments

• Self assessment and peer assessment - do the
  students need training in it
• How will the university organise this?
• the fairest way to conduct such assessments is to
  perform the peer assessments in secret and to
  ignore the self-assessment element in any final
  summative assessment.
• Lejk Wyvill (2001)

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Future? large groups alternative assessments

• Skills need practice -
• e.g. reference database using endnote
• needs to be built in more
• opportunities and advantages must be clear.
• (Procedural vs declarative.)

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Future ? the value of assessment

• Norton argues that focussing on assessment
  criteria can be counterproductive - student
  stops learning
• a solution is to use problem based approach
• here getting students to do presentation of
  difficult material is a way of achieving the aim
• although the development of criteria not very
  satisfactory, nor the peer assessment, the
  learning through the assessment was.
• Lin Norton (2004)

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Peer and self assessment

• Students take peer-assessment process seriously,
• Students show a self-bias, self higher than of
  others
• contribution index had little effect
• Found a strong correlation between the
  contribution and overall assignment score.
• But we didnt get it to work too well
• Lucy Johnston and Lynden Miles (2004).

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the value of peer assessment

• contribution index had little impact on the marks
  
• does not indicate that peer evaluation isnt
  worthwhile.
• peer-assessment used to engage students in their
  work groups, to have them take responsibility for
  their learning (Michaelsen, 1992 Rafiq
  Fullerton, 1996) and to minimize the likelihood
  of free-riders.

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Future ? For peer assessment

• peer-assessment (tutor moderated) of the poster
  (75)
• tutor marking of the feedback sheet written by
  students (25)
• i.e. marking of the quality of the peer marking.
  Tutor marking of students feedback sheets
  encouraged students to engage seriously with the
  process
• Bloxham and West (2004)

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Project aims

• students did easy
• not particularly difficult
• Students not keen
• No real initiative
• Hard for students to be objective
• Worked

• To learn PowerPoint
• Assign topic areas which were difficult
• Use peer assessment
• Develop criteria for peer assessment through
  student contribution on Blackboard
• Use student assessment of group contribution
• Make use of assessment as a means to enhance
  learning

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References

• Bloxham and West (2004) Understanding the rules
  of the game marking peer assessment as a medium
  for developing students conceptions of
  assessment Assessment Evaluation in Higher
  Education Vol. 29, No. 6
• Habeshaw, Gibbs, Habeshaw (1992) 53 Problems
  with large classes Bristol Technical and
  Educational Services
• Jaques (1991) Learning in groups London Kogan
  Page
• Johnston and Lynden Miles (2004) Assessing
  contributions to group assignments Assessment
  Evaluation in Higher Education Vol. 29, No. 6
• Lejk Wyvill (2001) The Effect of the Inclusion
  of Self assessment with Peer Assessment of
  Contributions to a Group Project a quantitative
  study of secret and agreed assessments Assessment
  Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol. 26, No. 6
• Norton (2004) Using assessment criteria as
  learning criteria a case study in psychology
  vol 29, No. 6
• Tan (2004) Does student self-assessment empower
  or discipline students? Assessment Evaluation
  in Higher Education Vol. 29, No. 6

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• active learners not a lot of evidence this is
  improving, students did enjoy the exercise, had
  hoped for more outcome, but perhaps the students
  just didnt notice the good things e.g. didnt
  reflect, but that is Zen
• Online methodology fairly good for collecting the
  stats, would be better to do the questionnaires
  online, and have done this in the past, but
  worried that students asked to always do things
  online, and get better response rate (and
  honesty) with paper.
• Not sure have sorted out how to get large groups
  of students to feel they are contributing.
  Students actually in smallish groups for the
  presentation 4 groups of 5 people in each
  workshop but this is quite costly in terms of
  time i.e. 37 groups or 8 workshops a week.

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Active roles

• Not very apparent. It can work, but with
  smaller groups where there is more on hand
  interaction. Not sure it was public since not
  clear that students had actually read many others
  - could be that there are simply too many.
  Would it be better to have groups writing up,
  but this can lead to additional problems (e.g.
  problem in second year with student saying she
  has done all the work - even with record etc)

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Student reflection

• What is our evidence for reflection in previous
  years tried to get students to fill in an online
  form on their activities each week - this
  hadnt worked.
• Decided to mark them on their contribution,
  however hasnt been very successful

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initiative

• Students didnt show initiative, or maybe had
  sorted all the ideas already so the final list of
  points on which to assess was pretty much what
  the staff had indicated as possible areas

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• more active role could be permitted by allowing
  student to comment on the criteria for marking as
  well as the percentage of the mark.

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change

• Conceptual - how to fit into psychology -
  declarative procedural - investment in how at
  present and change. Core of self.

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ownership

• Different ways in which one can perceive
  ownership. To have a few students in a focus
  group saying they did, may not be valid as
  students in focus group may want control,
  whereas other students may not want to be in a
  focus group. Do have an interest in learning,
  but are happy to do it in a private way - is
  this a big issue the extent to which students
  might want to do things on their own, in their
  own way (e.g. ltsn project)