The opinions of prospective teachers on peer assessment

Abstract

This research was conducted to determine the opinions of prospective teachers on peer assessment. The study was carried out at a university in the West Black sea with forty-one prospective Turkish teachers. The prospective teachers presented a lesson on a subject they had decided on formerly, and were evaluated by their peers. The groups consisted of five members, and all the members of the class participated in peer assessment alternately. After the completion of peer assessment study, the opinions of prospective teachers were obtained by asking them to answer open-ended questions in written form. For the data obtained, content analysis was carried out. The findings of the study has indicated that peer evaluation is beneficial in providing affective and academic development, use of metacognitive strategies, and in the points of giving feedback. It has been determined that personal characteristics, personal relations, not being competent at peer assessment and the assessment forms’ being overloaded with too many criteria have resulted in a couple of problems at application. Prospective teachers have made suggestions considering the role of the teacher, the features of the assessment group, the means of assessment and the assessment form and they have not welcomed the idea of using the peer assessment points as final grades. Within the frame of the findings of the study, the suggestions have been developed on how to construct peer assessment practices.