How Tool Support and Peer Scoring Improved Our Students' Attitudes Toward Peer Reviews

Abstract

We wanted to introduce peer reviews for the final report in a course on Software Testing. The students however had experienced issues with peer reviews in a previous course which made this a challenge. To get a better understanding of the situation, we distributed a pre-questionnaire to the students and 48 of the 83 students provided their expectations on peer reviews. To deal with some of the perceived issues, we developed a peer review tool where we introduce anonymity, grading of reviews, teacher interventions, as well as let students score and comment on the reviews they receive. In total, 67 reports were submitted by 83 students and 325 reviews were completed. We also distributed a post-questionnaire and this was answered by 48 students. Results from our study show that 27 students expected incorrect feedback but only 13 students agreed to have got incorrect feedback. The students also reported that they found the feedback from their peers more valuable (+15%) than expected, and 88% of the students think they learned from doing peer reviews. There are still some issues with peer reviews but overall we find that the students' attitudes toward peer reviews have improved.