Developing A Peer Evaluation Plan

Peer evaluation is at the heart of keeping students accountable to their teammates for their preparation and contribution to team activities. It is a good idea to carefully explain the evaluation process to the students and perhaps give them a formative opportunity to give each other feedback before the end of the course.

There are a variety of methods that can be suitable in different contexts. You need to consider your goals and contexts to select the appropriate peer evaluation method for your course. Whatever peer evaluation method you choose, it needs to have enough teeth (ability to affect a student’s final grade) to encourage the reticent student to contribute.

Primarily Quantitative

Two methods can be used the simpler divide the money evaluation and a more rigorous rubric-based evaluation.

In rubric-based evaluations, students rate their teammates’ behaviors using Likert scales on a series of questions about the team experience. Typical rubric criteria include:

• Preparation: did your teammates come prepared?
• Participation: did your teammates come to class?
• Contribution: did your teammates contribute to team success?

In simpler “divide-the- money” evaluations, each person is given a fixed sum to divide amongst team members. A typical evaluation prompt might be: “Your project team has received a $1,000 bonus. Divide the bonus amongst your teammates based on their contribution to the project.”

Fink Method

A multiplier is created from the peer evaluation scores and that is used to adjust the overall course grade for a particular student.

Some examples will likely help.

Example 1

In the case of a high-performing student, where the team’s average peer evaluation score might be 10 and that particular student has received an 11 overall, the individual score is then divided by the average peer evaluation and yields 1.1. This is then used as a course multiplier. Therefore the student receives 1.1 times the unadjusted whole team grade (e.g. 80%), adjusting their grade upwards to 88%.

Example 2

In the case of an underperforming student, where the team’s peer evaluation average might be 10 and that particular student might have received an 8, their score is then divided by the average peer evaluation and yields 0.8, which is then multiplied by the team grade. Therefore the student receives 0.8 times the unadjusted whole team grade (e.g. 80%), adjusting their grade downwards to 64%.

Michaelsen Method

A separate team maintenance score (usually 5% of course grade) is created from evaluation results for each student.

The decision to use the Fink or Michealsen method often rests on the percent of course grade that is allocated to team products. When the team products make up a significant portion of the overall course grade, it can make sense to use the Fink/Michaelsen Method.

Primarily Qualitative

University of Texas Method

Focuses on providing students with valuable written feedback on their performance (it is not used to adjust student scores). Students are asked to reflect on two prompts for each of their teammates – one thing I appreciate about you and one thing I request. This has similarities to the CONTINUE-STOP-START method. I would like you to CONTINUE to….I would like you to STOP…..I would like you to START….

Koles Method

A hybrid between the University of Texas Method and the Fink/Michaelsen Method. It incorporates both formative written feedback and summative evaluations of performance. Also gives extensive feedback on the quality of the feedback you give your teammates. Paul describes this as a lot of work, but one of his favourite parts of the course each semester. 

Here are the 3 most common:

• Preparation: did your teammates come prepared?
• Participation: did your teammates come to class?
• Contribution: did your teammates contribute to team success?

Here are other possibilities:

• Fosters good team climate
• Facilitates contribution of others
• Completes task on time
• Responds well to conflict
• Displayed positive attitude
• Was consistently helpful
• Expressed thoughts clearly
• Reacted sensitively to non-verbal cues
• Worked hard
• Was dependable
• Overall, a valuable team member

You can use online software to streamline the task of peer evaluation. Often you can set the software up in September and collect the results in April.

iPeer

This free open software was developed at the University of British Columbia and allows you to entirely automate the peer evaluation process. It supports a number of different evaluation types and has a building block integration with Blackboard Learn. The software need to be installed on a local server and is based on the typical LAMP stack (this means sometime to your IT group). You can learn more about it here and download it for free here. This is a good choice for countries with strict privacy laws. In my home province of British Columbia, Canada – any student data needs to be stored on Canadian servers.

CATME

This free US based web service lets you easily set up peer evaluations for your class. The only catch is you give them the right to do research on the anonymous aggregate evaluation data.

Teammates

This free Singapore based web service lets you easily set up peer evaluations for your class. This software is relatively new but looks extraordinarily promising.

SparkPlus

This inexpensive Australian based web service lets you easily set up peer evaluations for your class. This software was developed by Mark Freeman from the University of Sydney Business School to support his TBL courses.