Influences on peer evaluation in a group project: an exploration of leadership, demographics and course performance

Abstract

Collaborative learning strategies are widely used in higher education to deepen learning, promote team-building skills and achieve course learning objectives. Using peer evaluation is an important strategy to ensure that engaged and active students are rewarded for their efforts, and to discourage loafing within groups. However, less is known about what biases may influence students' peer evaluations. In this paper, we investigate what variables students may (consciously or unconsciously) use to evaluate their peers. We explore the role of sex, race, course performance and group leadership on peer evaluation. We also investigate whether these variables correlate with students' final course grade. We found that students who reported being leaders in groups were evaluated higher than peers who reported being followers, and that course performance positively correlated with peer evaluations. White students received higher peer evaluations than students of colour. This difference reflects trends in group leadership and course performance, with more white students than students of colour reporting being leaders in groups and receiving higher grades.

Mitigating the Impact of Social Loafing through the use of Team Charters and Team Evaluations

“…Collaborative learning can occur in both face-toface settings and in online environments. Teaching students the skills needed to collaborate in both environments helps prepare students for future jobs in which they may need to coordinate work efforts across different time and/or geographical settings (Alnuaimi et al, 2010;Campbell & Ellingson;2008;Dingel & Wei, 2014;Fleming, 2008;Li 2001). Students need to learn to communicate through online or in-class discussions, platforms such as D2L, Blackboard or Moodle or through collaboration tools such as Google Docs (Perron, 2011).…”

“…Team based activities promote cooperative learning. Cooperative learning occurs when individuals work together to accomplish a common goal (Bonwell & Eison, 1991;Bruffee, 1995;Dingel & Wei, 2014;Johnson, Johnson & Smith, 1991;Jones, 2019). Cooperative learning provides students with a structured process for working on activities (Johnson et al, 1991;Millis & Cotrel, 1998).…”

Assessing the “I” in group work assessment: State of the art and recommendations for practice

“…These procedures varied in complexity ranging from a holistic view (Lejk & Wyvill 2001) to a complex procedure-which normalized raw peer ratings, calculated individual weighting factors, partially corrected for inter-rater agreement and constrained above-average contributions (Spatar et al 2015). In four studies, (Strom, et al 1999;Knight, 2004;Kuisma 2007;Dingel & Wei 2014) such algorithms were not used or reported because they were not relevant to these studies. In all but one study the tutor gave a grade, and in almost all cases, only the end product was used for this grading (Table 2).…”

“…The second issue concerns biases due to group composition (Takeda & Homberg 2014;Dingel & Wei 2014;Spatar et al 2015). We acknowledge that the composition of the group is likely to influence how the group functions.…”

“…This holistic judgment was sometimes preceded by some preparation by the students. Students were, for example, instructed to reflect on a set of behaviorrelated questions, for example, concerning peer attendance, effort, responsibility (Dingel & Wei 2014). Another way of assessing individual contributions is described by Tucker who used a validated instrument using specific and welldescribed aspects of group work combined with a more holistic approach (Tucker 2013).…”