Filip Dochy

The use of self-, peer and co-assessment in higher education: A review

ABSTRACT The growing demand for lifelong learners and reflective practitioners has stimulated a re-evaluation of the relationship between learning and its assessment, and has influenced to a large extent the development of new assessment forms such as self-, peer, and co-assessment. Three questions are discussed: (1) what are the main findings from research on new assessment forms such as self-, peer and co-assessment; (2) in what way can the results be brought together; and (3) what guidelines for educational practitioners can be derived from this body of knowledge? A review of literature, based on the analysis of 63 studies, suggests that the use of a combination of different new assessment forms encourages students to become more responsible and reflective. The article concludes with some guidelines for practitioners.

Creating a Learning Environment by Using Self-, Peer-, and Co-Assessment.

To develop the skills and competencies required in professional organisations, students have to reflect on their own behaviour. Many current assessment practices in higher education do not answer this need. The recent interest in new assessment forms, such as self-, peer-, and co-assessment, can be seen as a means to tackle this problem. In the present article, a review of the literature provides answers to two questions: (1) How are self-, peer- and co-assessment applied in higher education? and (2) What are the effects of the use of these forms of assessment on the quality of the learning environment? Analyses of 62 studies showed that self-, peer- and co-assessment can be effective tools in developing competencies needed as a professional. These forms of assessment are often used in combination with each other. Implementation of these forms of assessments accelerates the developments of a curriculum based on competencies (knowledge as a tool) rather than knowledge (as a goal) and leads towards the integration of instruction and assessment in higher education. As such, this development of a learning environment contributes to the education of responsible and reflective professionals.

An inventory of peer assessment diversity

Since Topping published his literature review on peer assessment in 1998, the number of studies on this subject has doubled, if not tripled. However, along with this expansion, the diversity of peer assessment applications increased equally fast. Based on recent literature, this contribution focuses specifically on the diversity that has come to exist in order to update Toppings typology, adding eight variables, extending eight others with extra sub‐dimensions, and including the implementation factors. Five original variables were absorbed into larger entities, leaving 20 variables which were finally grouped into five clusters. For teachers or advisors, this inventory may be of interest as a source of inspiration or as a checklist of important decisions to make when working with peer evaluation. For researchers, it may be a guide towards covering the full scope of particularities when introducing their peer assessment design. Moreover, the framework developed in this paper might relieve the possible confusion originating from the use of a single term to cover a multitude of sometimes incompatible practices.

Exploring the occurrence of team learning behaviours in project teams over time

Abstract The aim of this qualitative longitudinal study is to create a more in-depth picture of the emergence of team learning behaviours throughout the lifespan of temporary project teams. In order to grasp the emergence of these behaviours, three project teams were followed from the start until the end of their project during a period of three months. Three team meetings spread over time were audiotaped and coded using a coding schema set-up to identify individual verbal behaviours and transform them into team learning behaviours. During the analysis, attention was given to the differentiation in the occurrence of different types of basic and facilitating team learning behaviours and in the occurrence of topics of learning behaviour (task – process – social) over time. Overall, no time-related patterns in terms of occurrence of type and topic of basic and facilitating team learning behaviours were found over the three meetings and across the three teams. The main driver for the occurrence of different team learning behaviours could be attributed to be the scope of the meeting during which they occur.