Adaptation of Peer Evaluation to Small Group Discussion (SGD) and Its Validity for Summative Evaluation

Abstract

We adopted peer evaluation (mutual evaluation between students) for small group discussion (SGD) amongˆrst graders. The peer evaluation criteria were 5 grade scales for 5ˆelds:``preparation,''``remark,''``listening,''``activeness,'' and``role.'' A comparison with tutor evaluation clariˆed the validity of peer evaluation for summative evaluation. Although the average of peer evaluation (4.2 (4.0 4.4)) was higher than that of tutor evaluation (3.8 (3.7 4.1)) (p＝0.0601, Mann-Whitney U test), the value of the correlation coe‹cient between peer evaluation and summative evaluation of SGD (average 0.35 (0.12 0.54)) was almost the same as that of the coe‹cient between tutor evaluation and summative evaluation of SGD (average 0.36 (0.24 0.42)) (p＝0.6761, Mann-Whitney U test). Principal component analysis showed that the tutor could not evaluate``remark'' and``listening'' independently, while students evaluatè`l istening'' independently from other evaluation criteria. The combination of peer and tutor evaluation may be multilateral evaluation for SGD. The questionnaire about peer evaluation for students showed that they recognized the value of peer evaluation and favorably accepted its use.