The role of self and peer assessment in Higher Education

Abstract

Self-assessment and peer assignment have clear advantages for the training of responsible, critical, and reflective professionals. In recent years, self and peer evaluation have also been shown to be even more effective than lecturer evaluation when we assure anonymity through online platforms learning tools. Therefore, self and peer assessments are to become a core aspect of student-centred evaluation processes in Higher Education. In the present work, we compare the formative evaluation from the lecturer with the self and peer assessments through a virtual learning environment. The subject of study if formed by assessments prepared by students in a first-year course in a Social Sciences degree at the Universidade de Vigo, Spain. We find a strong concordance between peer assessment and lecturer assignment, and a moderate agreement between self-assessment and lecturer assignment. These results show that students perform well as peer evaluators, with peer assignment being a procedure with high validity and reliability.