14/05/2015

A trial of peer assessment took place in the summer term. This consisted of individual assessment, by 14 students, of group web pages designed by second year students as part of their Physics skills module, and was followed by a group discussion. These web pages are currently on the Physics skills website with restricted viewing permission. A comparison is subsequently being made with the marks and comments awarded by an academic earlier in the year.

All 2nd year and 3rd year Mphys students were invited to take part, with 18 accepting but only 14 doing the assessment. As an incentive the students were offered £20 in the form of Amazon vouchers, to cover a predicted one hour for the assessment and a further one hour for the group discussion. Each student assessed two group pages, out of a total of 18, although there are currently 21 group pages overall. The group discussion proved productive, with students giving constructive feedback on the process.

Analysis of the data is being carried out, and results of the assessment will be posted here soon.