External peer review of assessment: an effective approach to verifying standards?

Abstract

There is growing international concern to regulate and assure standards in higher education.

Does the use of summative peer assessment in collaborative group work inhibit good judgement?

“…The key focus of this study is peer assessment of individual contribution to and performance in a group work assignment, rather than peer assessment of the academic standard of an assignment. The former aims to develop students' soft skills and evaluative judgement while the latter aims to regulate and assure academic standards (Bloxham et al 2015).…”

UK PhD assessment in accounting and finance: social capital in action

“…Further, it is in the interest of individuals to cooperate given '(credible) threats of ostracism or loss of multiple relationships for failure to behave well' (Jackson, et al, 2012(Jackson, et al, , p.1858. Bloxham, Hudson, den Outer & Price (2015) found some evidence that external examiners, in general, may be prohibited from giving negative appraisals for fear of the impact on future relationships and employment prospects. If securing external examiners and the potential behaviour of those examiners is based on the existence and maintenance of social capital, the PhD assessment process is potentially questionable, given the underlying assumption is of an independent peer review.…”

Improving assessment tasks through addressing our unconscious limits to change

“…Within an accountability framework, 'considering the opposite', that is, forms of assessment quite different to the status quo, or proposing other alternatives, all promote more careful thought of a wider range of options (Larrick 2004: Soll, Milkman andPayne 2015). While peer review of assessment is usually conceived of as a cross-institutional moderation of student work (Bloxham, Hudson, den Outer and Price 2015), informal reviews of assessment tasks within a department or discipline, combined with reviews by departmental assessment committees, might be even more effective in improving the quality of assessment tasks.…”