Gender differences in students’ argumentative essay writing, peer review performance and uptake in online learning environments

Abstract

This study adopted a pre-test–post-test design to explore gender differences in argumentative essay writing and peer review performance and uptake within a higher education context. To do this, as part of a bigger project, 101 students were asked to individually write an argumentative essay, engage in peer review activities and revise their original essay based on the received reviews from peers. The findings showed that female students perform better than male students in argumentative essay writing in terms of taking a position on the topic. Gender differences were also found in peer review performance, where females provided better justifications for identified problems in peer review, more constructive reviews and higher quality peer review than males. The findings also revealed that although there was no gender difference in overall peer review uptake, females uptake of peer review resulted in improvement of their arguments against the position in the revised essay. These findings suggest that gender plays a significant role in argumentative essay writing, peer review performance and uptake of the received reviews from peers. Recommendations for future research along with how to deal with these gender differences in educational practice in online settings are provided based on the findings.