There are a huge number of schools and reading materials that tell how useful it is to let students evaluate each other. But is it so great in practice?
I agree that peer assessment can be really convenient and useful for developing various skills, but the way it is currently being used in online institutions is absolutely wrong and, hopefully, it will be corrected one day.
I believe that peer assessment should be under the control of the teacher. You can’t just let students who haven’t really learned the topic themselves decide the final grade of their classmates. Moreover, many students put scores at random, as if it gives them pleasure to give a lower grade to others.
Often this is done, among other things, because students believe that everything happens absolutely anonymously and they will never be identified. Of course, the instructor will see that something is wrong – but most often, until you complain to him or her about a low score, no one else will pay attention to it – obviously, teachers do not have time to check hundreds of students at a time.
Another problem is that when checking each other, students often do not notice really important mistakes or inconsistencies. Thus, since the teacher does not personally check each work, it cannot be said that grading each other is really capable of improving students’ knowledge.
To be honest, I really think that some peer assessments are not only useless but also harmful to the learning process. Just look at this:
0 out of 90. Yes, perfectly done. Thank you.