The development of a peer marking system for group assignments

Abstract

Group assignments and the fair allocation of assessment marks has led to the development of this easy to administer system.

The system involves two forms that have to be completed by the students as a part of their assignment. One of them is a summary of tasks-by-student which is completed by the group as a whole, and the other is a measure of peer participation which is completed confidentially by individual group members. These forms are non-threatening and feedback from students in the use of these forms has generally been positive. The hard workers get to have their work recognised, while those who contribute little are rewarded accordingly.

Processing of the forms to achieve the required variation of individual marks can be done either manually or via a spreadsheet. An example of the spreadsheet method has been used in this paper. (An explanation of the manual process is available on request.)

This system is considered to be suitable for any degree course after the first semester, after some group learning theory has been taught. It also requires that the students are familiar with the assessment environment.

Although the process attempts to quantify a student's contribution to the whole task of creating an assignment, the objective must always be to assess what learning has taken place. A student may not have directly created any of the assessment submission, and yet can be deemed to know the content because of their involvement.