Abstract

Introducing undergraduates to the peer-review process helps them understand how scientific evidence is evaluated and communicated. In a large biology course, technical writing was taught through mock peer-review. Students learned to critique original research through a multistep framework, calibrating their assessment skills with class standards. We hypothesized students’ assessment of their own and their peers’ writing becomes more accurate as they gain academic experience, and that novice students are more overconfident in their writing abilities. Counter to many instructors’ assumptions, our results indicated that regardless of level of academic experience, students’ self-assessed grades were higher than peer-assessed grades (p < 0.01). Both self- and peer-assessed grades were significantly higher than the instructor’s grade (p < 0.01). Overall, the peer-review exercise was positively viewed by students. Most students found the peer-review process beneficial, and 88% reported taking it seriously, despite knowing they would receive instructor’s feedback at the final stage of the writing exercise. Ultimately, the peer-review process provides an effective way to teach technical writing to undergraduates, but instructors should not assume that returning students with greater academic experience are better judges of their own performance. This study illustrates that all students are equally challenged to accurately assess the quality of their own work.

摘要

向本科生介绍同行评审过程有助于他们了解如何评估和传达科学证据。在大型生物学课程中，技术写作是通过模拟同行评审教授的。学生们学会了通过多步骤框架来批判原创研究，用课堂标准来校准他们的评估技能。我们假设学生对自己和同龄人写作的评估随着他们获得学术经验而变得更加准确，并且新手学生对自己的写作能力更加自信。与许多教师的假设相反，我们的结果表明，无论学术经验水平如何，学生的自我评估成绩都高于同行评估成绩（p < 0.01)。自我评估和同行评估的成绩均显着高于教师的成绩（p  < 0.01）。总体而言，学生对同行评议活动持积极态度。大多数学生发现同行评审过程有益，88% 的学生表示认真对待，尽管他们知道他们会在写作练习的最后阶段收到教师的反馈。最终，同行评审过程提供了一种向本科生教授技术写作的有效方法，但教师不应假设具有更多学术经验的回国学生能够更好地评判自己的表现。这项研究表明，所有学生都面临着准确评估自己工作质量的同等挑战。