Peer assessment in an EFL context: attitudes and friendship bias

Abstract

This study reports a research project which compared teacher and peer assessment of English university students’ compositions. In addition, it investigated possible friendship bias in peer assessment as well as the impacts of this practice on learners’ attitudes towards it. To this aim, a total of 38 university students of English who were passing their writing course took a proficiency test and filled in a pre-questionnaire. Afterwards, training and practice sessions on using Jacobs et al.’s composition profile followed. The actual peer assessment of compositions, teacher assessment, and administration of a post-questionnaire were the subsequent practices employed respectively. To analyze the collected data from the 26 subjects who participated in all parts of the study paired-sample t-tests and chi square were applied. The results revealed no significant difference between the learners’ peer assessment and teacher assessment. No friendship bias was found in peer assessment, but this practice led to the change of students’ attitudes towards a positive perception on peer assessment.