Project Investigator: Christina Hendricks, Professor of Teaching, Philosophy
Project description
There is a good deal of SoTL research showing that engaging in peer feedback can help improve student writing (e.g., Topping, 1998; Paulus, 1999; Cho & Schunn, 2007; Cho & MacArthur, 2010; Crossman & Kite, 2012). There are, however, some gaps in the literature. First, most (if not all) studies published on this topic consider the effect of peer feedback on revisions to a single essay, rather than on whether students use peer comments on one essay when writing another essay. In addition, there is missing from the literature any analyses of what one might call a “dose-response curve”—how are the “doses” of peer feedback related to the “response” of improvement in writing? In other words, do students tend to use peer feedback to improve their writing more after a few sessions, when they’ve gotten to know the students giving the feedback a bit better?
Project Questions
(1) How is peer feedback (both that given and received) related to improvement in writing over the course of the 10-12 essays students write in Arts One?
(2) Does this relationship change over time (e.g., is peer feedback more effective after a certain number of peer feedback sessions, and/or are there diminishing returns after many sessions)?
Impact on teaching and learning at UBC
The answers to these questions could be useful for considering how many peer feedback sessions one might want to plan in various courses, even if students aren’t just revising the same essay several times