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Chapter 4
Enhancing University
Students' Interaction and
Learning through Formative
Peer-Assessment Online
Monica Liljeström
Umeå University, Sweden
AbstrACt
This chapter draws upon data collected from a Swedish project with the aim to implement and evaluate
peer assessment/peer review in online and distance education in the context of higher education. Previous
studies of peer assessment in on-campus settings are discussed with a focus on what impact these findings
had on the design of the peer assessment element. Findings from a distance course with 60 students, in
which peer assessment and peer assessment preparation was carried out trough asynchronous text based
communication in FirstClass, are reported. Data are collected from multiple sources and analyzed with
the aim to find out how peer assessment element worked in this asynchronous text based environment.
The results indicate that the students' engagement and collaborative efforts in general was high. The
overall conclusion is that peer assessment could be worth exploring further as a tool to enhance student
collaboration and learning in courses based on asynchronous text based communication.
introduCtion
Assessment in this article is understood as described
by Sadler (2008, p 2) as: “…the process of forming
a judgement about the quality and extent of student
achievement or performance, and therefore by
inference a judgement about the learning that has
taken place”.Although peer assessment/peer review
has been researched by many others in on-campus
environments there seem to be fewer studies on
how this element works in an online and distance
education setting.
In this chapter I will share some experiences from
a joint project between the Departments of Educa-
tion at Umeå University, Mitthögskolan and Luleå
University, Sweden. The aim of the project was to
implement and explore what peer assessment in the
form of peer review contributes to enhancing the
students' learning in online and distance courses.
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