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Peer-led formative feedback
Dr Adam Liston, (Senior Teaching Fellow and Course Director on the MSc in Advanced Neuroimaging at UCL Institute of Neurology) talks about developing students' ability to give quality feedback.
31 March 2025
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Introduction
A student’s employability is significantly enhanced if they can give and receive insightful and considerate feedback. We introduced a peer-led formative assessment task to develop this ability. Our secondary aims were to guarantee students useful and timely feedback and to improve their assessment literacy (Price et al. 2012) and essay-writing performance.
To achieve this, we effectively emulated the actual marking process as a peer-led activity. This had two phases:
- Phase 1 was the training. This phase was the most impactful, and has the most detail below.
- Phase 2 was the students marking each other’s draft theses.
Phase 1 - training
After several sessions on Critical Appraisal and writing tips, we had a session focussed on the marking criteria and level descriptors for the assessment. We discussed level descriptors for the following assessment criteria:
- Writing style
- Referencing
- Essay addresses question (Key criterion)
- Factual content
- Originality / analysis of data
- Critical appraisal (Key criterion)
- Depth of understanding
- Comprehensive coverage of subject
Students were then given access to three archived essays, and given a week to return marks and feedback for two of them. At the following session, students came together and formed groups based on which essay(s) they marked. The purpose of their group task was to arrive at a consensus of what mark to award in each of the criteria, giving a rationale for each choice. Finally, we compared these marks with the actual marks awarded by tutors for the example essays, which prompted further discussion.
This process is intended to raise students’ assessment literacy, improving their understanding of what they’re aiming for in their own writing, and confidence to evaluate their own assignment as it develops. It also gives them insight into the process by which their own marks and feedback will be generated, including the reconciliation process, and the subjective, sometimes fuzzy nature of academic judgment.
Students’ consensus marks tend to be similar to those actually awarded by tutors, at least in terms of the grade awarded. This can act to increase their trust in the marking process, and also in their own judgment.
Although it’s difficult to ensure that all the students engage with the marking task before the final taught session, they can still join a group and benefit from a purposeful and structured discussion of the assessment criteria.
Phase 2 – peer feedback
All students were asked to submit a near-final draft of their thesis for formative assessment nine days prior to the final submission deadline. They each received one project on which to provide constructive feedback relating to the assessment criteria. Feedback was to be entered into the mark sheet provided and also inserted as comments in the document itself. These were to be useful, specific and sensitive - students were particularly encouraged to include praise as well as criticism. Students had three days to complete their peer assessment.
I briefly reviewed the feedback for each project before returning it to the student, leaving six days for them to reflect on the received feedback, implement it where appropriate, and submit their final, improved version for summative assessment.
Discussion
The process was fast and labour-saving and the peer feedback seemed largely accurate, insightful, helpful and encouraging, requiring little correction. Students said they found it useful and want to repeat the exercise in future.
Opinion was mixed about how clearly the criteria provided a framework for assessment. This suggests the process would benefit from discussing them further and improving their formulation in the mark sheets. Another student suggested, reasonably, that only their project supervisor could comment sufficiently on the technical details of their thesis.
Most students knew who marked their work. Anonymity is difficult to preserve for such a small cohort and there can be legitimate concerns about ‘friendship’ marking when the final mark stands. More training may increase the reliability of students’ marking and their understanding of the marking criteria.
Adam's top tip
The collaborative marking session works best when as many students as possible complete their pre-work - it's important to send timely reminders and encouragements.