Best Practices for the Implementation of Goal Setting and Peer Assessment: Curriculum and Research Design

Abstract

Incorporating team work in both organizational and classroom settings is often problematic due to uneven effort, participation, and contributions of individual team members. One solution is to incorporate peer assessment of individual effort into team projects. Incorporating goal setting into peer assessments may lead to increased motivation of team members to rate their peers and improved team performance. Setting goals based on peer feedback and subsequent public announcement of these specific goals to fellow team members may increase students’ motivation and accountability to assess their peers. This paper outlines best practices for integrating feedback and goal setting in the peer assessment process within higher education, and provides recommendations for designing research to best assess peer assessment interventions. The following are discussed in the paper: goal setting and peer assessment literature, research implications for peer assessments in the classroom, and a model for implementing peer assessments.

Keywords: Goal setting, peer assessment, cirriculum

JEL Classification: M1