Exploring usage of summative peer assessments in engineering education

Abstract

Summative peer assessment is an assessment method where the one's work is typically graded by several other anonymous peers using predefined criteria. The value of summative peer assessments in higher education stems from the fact that they can provide scalability in assessment for large enrollment classes for a variety of different assessment types. The main disadvantages of using summative peer assessments are questionable validity and reliability. In this paper, the first results of using summative peer assessments in a large enrollment professional skills course at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing are reported and discussed. The main research question of this work is how well, given specific conditions of the conducted summative peer assessments, do assignment credits assigned by peers correlate with assignment credits assigned by course lecturers. Data were obtained from four summative peer assessments through the course. A random sample of 50 submitted works per peer assessment was evaluated by course lecturers and corresponding assignment credits were compared to assignment credits awarded by students. Data analysis results suggest a moderate to high correlation between several measures of assignment credits awarded by peers and lecturers.