Peer and self-assessment as a means to improve levels of reflection in students’ journal writing

Much has been written about ways in which we might help students to improve the level of reflection that can be found in their Journal Writing. Formative peer and self assessment has been cited as a way for students to develop a clearer understanding of what is required to write reflectively and can alleviate some of the difficulties \nassociated with staff assessing student journals. In order to evaluate the efficacy, reliability and validity of peer and self-assessment, a cohort of architecture students \nwere asked to assess each other’s on-line reflective blogs on two occasions during an academic year. These were rated in terms of the level and focus of reflection using a \nstandard assessment rubric. It was found that there was reasonable consistency of ratings between those reviewing the same student’s work. There was less consistency \nbetween an individual’s own assessment and the assessment of their work by their peers. There was also a significant improvement in the level of reflection recorded in \nthe peer-assessment between the first and second review. It appears that this improvement resulted from the process of undertaking the peer assessment, rather than through the utilisation of the feedback it produced.