Some limits in peer assessment

Abstract

Nowadays, the educatonal methodology known as 'peer assessment' consttutes one of the pillars of formatve assessment at the diferent levels of the educatonal system, partcularly at the University level. In fact, in recent years, it has been increasingly used to enhance students' meaningful learning, as it is considered to be an element of social learning, in which students beneft from the lessons learned by other classmates, and draw upon the ability to assess the quality of the learning, contrastng it with the level of knowledge that each has about the subject/course being evaluated, and using common evaluaton criteria. In this regard, this paper represents the experience of two groups of students. It allows us to determine how many peer assessments should be required of students in a partcular course in order to consttute a serious, reliable actvity. On the other hand, from the point of view of the student, the assessments are evaluated to the extent that they are seen as a required and mandatory exercise that must be carried out by students simply to pass the course. In the later case, the actvity can become extremely trivial and banal. Statstcal analysis of the results indicates that three peer assessments per student appraised represents an adequate number. On the other hand, more than thirty peer assessments fail to contribute to learning, nor do they represent serious actvites.