How to Make Peer Feedback in Teams Useful: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Evidence is clear that peer feedback has a slightly beneficial effect on future peer ratings of students effectiveness in teams, suggesting that peer feedback is useful. However, the effects are quite modest and are inconsistent. We believe one reason for this is the inconsistent approaches to debriefing and guiding the usage of peer feedback information. That is, instructors vary widely on the process they use to implement peer feedback in the classroom. Our feeling is that interventions that drive attention to and action on the results of the peer feedback will be instrumental for activating regulatory processes and creating stronger, more consistent behavior change. We report on one such intervention versus a control condition without any particular support beyond provision of the peer feedback scores and comments. We find that the intervention actually buffered students from scoring lower at a later time in the semester, suggesting that the intervention was successful in helping students maintain the early levels of positive ratings before the work became intensive and some members potentially failed to perform according to expectation