Marshall Memo Summarizes Peer Assessment Research

A summary in the Marshall Memo (Marshall Memo 645, July 11, 2016) describes the effectiveness of peer assessment in improving student writing at the secondary school level. This research, published by Christian Schunn, Amanda Godley, and Sara DeMartino in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, (July/August 2016, Vol. 60, #1, p. 13-23), found that student scores were “remarkably consistent”, and correlated highly with expert AP scorers. Many students felt the most valuable part of the exercise was viewing successful strategies and weaknesses in the work of their classmates. The results suggest peer assessment may be effectively used to improve secondary school writing skills, in part by allowing teachers to more frequently assign writing tasks without adding to their workload.

For the complete research summary, please see http://www.marshallmemo.com.