The Importance of Marking Criteria in the Use of Peer Assessment

This paper reports a study which implemented and evaluated a method of peer assessment, as a formative and summative assessment procedure. Pairs of first‐year undergraduate biology students were asked to complete a poster assignment on a specific aspect of nerve physiology. This paper contains details of a method which allows student peer and tutor marking of work against the individual marking criteria to be evaluated. The results show that a comparison between the tutor and the student peer mark may be misleading as a guide to the validity of peer assessment. The importance of considering the individual sections of the marking criteria is illustrated. It was found that when the individual criteria were analysed the number of students marking the same as the tutor ranged from 31% to 62%. It also became clear that specific areas of the marking criteria were prone to over and under‐marking. Analysis of student feedback forms showed that students not only liked carrying out peer assessment, but felt the benefits in terms of developing facets of their learning process and heightening their awareness of their work. These results are discussed in the light of other studies.