Bulletin of Education and Research

August 2021, Vol. 43, No.2 pp. 101-122

Effectiveness of Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback

in Pakistani Context: A Case of University of the Punjab

Nadia Majid*and Muhammad Islam**

________________________________________________________________________
Abstract
Writing an effective essay in English is a serious challenge for most of the students, despite its
academic importance, in Pakistan. The methodology used to teach writing skills is ineffective and
the assessment criteria is outdated. In this regard, peer assessment and peer feedback practices
have proved to be fruitful in enhancing the writing skills of second language learners. Therefore,
this study aimed to examine whether there is any improvement in the overall writing skills as well
as the specific subskills of writing after implementing peer assessment and peer feedback
practices. A quasi-experimental design, called Multiple Baseline Time Series design, was used to
collect data from the students during five interventions of essay writing, peer assessment and peer
feedback process. Two intact groups of undergraduate students were chosen, through cluster
random sampling, as experimental and control groups, from Center for Undergraduate Studies at
University of the Punjab. The data collected, was in the form of essays written by the students and
the scores given by the peers during peer assessment. Those scores as well as content analysis of
the essays helped the researcher to analyze the results of the study. The findings reveal that
although there was a slight improvement in a few subskills of writing, yet in the Pakistani context,
these assessment practices failed to present any substantial learning achievement overall, as
compared to traditional teacher-based assessment practices. Therefore, the study concluded that in
our context, these assessment practices may be productive, if they are implemented with teacher’s
assessment, after thorough training of the teachers as well as students.

Keywords: Peer assessment, peer feedback, essay writing, second language writing skills, quasi-
experimental study, content analysis.

*College of Art and Design, University of the Punjab, Lahore Email: [email protected]
**Assistant Professor, Institute of Education and Research, University of the Punjab, Lahore
Effectiveness of Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback in Pakistani Context 102

Introduction
Peer assessment and peer feedback practices have been a crucial part of educational
settings for more than three decades. However, the recent trends in assessment have
attached a significance to these assessment practices, in promoting learning. For instance,
there is a great emphasis on goal-oriented learning to encourage lifelong learning in the
students. The movement ‘Assessment for Learning’ has become widespread which
emphasizes the importance of engaging students in the assessment practices and
involving them in feedback processes. Zhang (2018) explains that there is an urgent need
for a more effective approach, through which students receive richer feedback, engage in
bidirectional communications and advance their writing as well as learning capabilities.
In this regard, peer assessment and peer feedback have gained relative popularity, in
enhancing the writing skills. Literature provides substantial evidence of peer assessment
and peer feedback proving to be beneficial in improving the writing skills of students in
various contexts in studies conducted across the globe (Gencha, 2018; Kuyyogsuy, 2019;
Meletiadou, 2021a; Uymaz, 2019; Wu & Schunn, 2021; Zhang, 2018).

Topping (2017) defines peer assessment as an arrangement for learners to

consider and specify the quality of a product, of other equal-status learners, which leads
to learning further, by giving elaborated feedback to achieve a negotiated agreed
outcome. In other words, peer assessment is a valuable pedagogical practice as it enables
the learners to take part in assessment by evaluating their peers’ learning process and
products (Bryan & Clegg, 2019). In addition, analysing other students’ work allows
students to interpret the assessment criteria, which leads to an understanding of good
performance and helping students to adjust their actions to meet the expected results (Ion,
Marti & Morell, 2019). Peer assessment incorporating peer feedback leads to more
beneficial outcomes as peer feedback provides the strengths and weaknesses along with
recommendations for improvement (Meletiadou, 2021a). Furthermore, peer feedback
means to have a dialogue whereby students share knowledge and understanding with the
intention of informing as ongoing learning (Zhu & Carless, 2018).

Peer assessment has gained relative popularity in higher education owing to its
favorable outcome in enhancing the writing skills, developing the critical ability,
promoting collaboration, improving higher order skills and taking responsibility of one’s
own learning. Detailed studies of peer assessment have shown that students benefit from
it (Double et. al. 2020; Meletiadou, 2021b). The learners’ perspectives about the benefits
of peer assessment have also been explored and have turned out to be favourable in most
of the studies (Gencha, 2018). Students believe that peer assessment and peer feedback
facilitate learning and motivation (Gencha, 2018; Quynh, 2021; Wu & Schunn, 2021).
Huisman et. al. (2019) explain that the benefit of peer feedback is that it is available in
Majid & Islam 103

greater volume and is given with greater immediacy, as compared to teacher feedback.
Since it is quite time consuming for teachers to provide detailed feedback, peer feedback
plays a more eminent role in students’ learning.

However, peer assessment and feedback have not been able to escape critique.
Various limitations have also been reported regarding these assessment practices in
literature. Researchers have found that although students express positive attitudes toward
the usage of peer feedback, they tend to significantly favor the feedback given by the
teachers (Quynh, 2021). There is also a possibility that students' negative attitudes
towards peer review might lead them to be unfair with their peers. In this way, they may
provide over-critical comments about their peers’ writings (Rouhi & Azizian, 2013).
Moreover, at the initial stage, students tend to be more doubtful of their peer’s ability to
assess their work (Ashenafi, 2017).

Consequently, literature provides recommendations to make the most of peer

assessment and feedback to promote learning. It is agreed that students need support in
order to provide quality feedback (Walker, 2015). This support may be provided by the
teacher in the form of training of the students for peer assessment, preferably by using a
criterion (Topping, 2009). Wu & Schunn (2021) suggest that by implementing
anonymous peer feedback to decrease bias, use of well-structured rubrics for peer
assessment and sufficient training in giving feedback, these assessment practices become
more reliable and profitable. Hence, despite all the critique, peer assessment and peer
feedback have been able to show valuable results.

An important aspect of peer assessment and feedback practices is the link of these
activities to Vygotsky’s (1978) social development theory, which emphasizes the vital
role of social interaction in learning (Lundstorm & Baker, 2009; Topping, 2021). This
theory emphasizes the importance of learning through interaction with the society and
more specifically in an educational context, the collaboration of students with their
teachers and peers. Further, it is claimed that the peer assessment process naturally
constructs a favorable teaching environment for peers to work within the zone of
proximal development (ZPD) (De Guerrero & Villamil, 2000). The learner’s ZPD refers
to the place between where learners are able to perform a task on their own versus with
the help of a teacher or parent (Lundstorm & Baker, 2009). The theoretical framework of
Vygotsky’s social development theory refers to two important aspects of peer assessment
and peer feedback; cognitive development and learning through social interaction which
can be implied as collaborative learning.
Effectiveness of Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback in Pakistani Context 104

According to one of the first advocates of peer assessment, cognitive and meta-
cognitive benefits can accrue before, during, or after the peer assessment (Topping,
2009). The learners critically evaluate the written text during peer assessment and suggest
various improvements for the sake of the revision of the text during peer feedback. Hill
(2016) claims that feedback triggers cognitive processes which can encourage the
verification or adjustment of understanding, point to filling in gaps and indicate
alternative strategies. This cognitive development occurs in a social environment which
create opportunities of interactive activities promoting learning. Peer assessment and peer
feedback provides the learners with exactly those interactive activities which propagates
learning from one another instead of learning in a teacher centered classroom.

Topping (1998) asserts that the need to communicate the assessment to another
should create purpose and accountability, and the language used for this purpose should
lead to the assessor's internal thought processes. Zhang (2018) suggested that in
opposition to the traditional class, peer collaboration encouraged students to discover
their intended meanings and to express themselves more confidently through their
writing. Furthermore, the process of discussion and elaboration during feedback allows
the students to work collaboratively to assess each other’s work (Gencha, 2018). It also
lowers the inhibitions of the students, and they feel less uncomfortable when their errors
are being pointed out and they focus more on learning and negotiating meaning through
the collaboration.

In Pakistan, writing skills have an essential role at the academic level, both in
learning and assessment process, as our primary mode of assessment is the written
examination. The student’s performance is evaluated through grades achieved on paper
pencil tests. Hence, it is crucial to have command on writing skills to succeed. Ironically,
the students gain exceptional grades despite having poor writing skills. Their key to
success is rote learning and cramming (Akram, 2017; Siddiqui, 2007). Due to this factor,
our students struggle to excel in writing skills and even after reaching the graduate level,
they are incapable of expressing their thoughts in a creative and coherent way.

Usually in our classrooms, during essay writing sessions, the teacher introduces
the topic to the students and then provides them with a sample essay to learn and replicate
(Rahman, 2010). Most of the times, the students are discouraged to write creatively on
their own because it increases the burden of checking and making corrections for the
teacher. Nevertheless, when the students are presented with an opportunity to write on
their own, they find it difficult to come up with ideas and correct sentence structure as
well as appropriate vocabulary to write effectively. When it comes to assessment of these
essays, the teachers mostly point out the spelling and grammar mistakes (Haider, 2012).
Majid & Islam 105

In large classroom settings, feedback provided by the teacher is mostly

insufficient or delayed which does not contribute much to the improvement of English
language writing skills. To grade an essay written by the students, instead of using some
specific criteria of assessment or a rubric, the teacher gives a general score, along with a
few red underlined marks and some spelling or grammar errors, encircled in the essay.
These circumstances describe the need of more practical and productive methods of
teaching and assessment, to ensure learning achievement in the students. This leads to the
statement of the problem of the present study.

Statement of the Problem

Previous studies in Pakistani context as well as common observation and experience of

professionals in education, indicates that a large number of students fails in English due
to poor writing skills (Siddique & Singh, 2017) yet no serious efforts are usually made to
address the issue (Sultana & Zaki, 2015). The education system in Pakistan, still follows
the traditional method of teaching and assessment of English (Akram, 2017) due to which
the writing skills of most of the learners do not seem to substantially improve, even when
they reach the tertiary level of education (Fareed, Jamal & Zai, 2021). They study English
as a compulsory subject for at least twelve years before they reach undergraduate level,
yet they are incapable of communicating in both written and spoken English (Sarfraz,
Mansoor & Tariq, 2015).

Moreover, the curriculum developers know that English language testing does not
measure students’ creativity and critical thinking, still there is no significant efforts being
made to improvise the teaching and testing methodology (Khan, 2011). Reliance on
outdated methods of teaching and assessment, may be one of the reasons behind the weak
English writing skills. Under these circumstances, it is evident that alternative feedback
practices that are effective and practically efficient, are required (Huisman et. al., 2019).
Akhtar et. al., (2019) emphasize that it is essential to introduce such approaches which
may focus on collaborative learning among students. Therefore, there is a dire need to
introduce effective teaching methodology and investigate alternative methods of
assessment, which encourages the development of writing skills in Pakistan.

Various studies on peer assessment and peer feedback concerning the

development of English language writing skills have been conducted all over the world,
yet the benefits of peer assessment and peer feedback in improving the English language
writing skills of undergraduate students in Pakistan had not been thoroughly investigated.
Hence, this study aimed to fill this gap and offered an insight into the effectiveness of
peer assessment and peer feedback in a Pakistani context.
Effectiveness of Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback in Pakistani Context 106

Significance of the Study

This study was significant in its own way, as such an experimental study, had not been
reported so far, which concerned the effect of peer assessment and peer feedback
practices on the undergraduate students’ English language writing skills in Pakistan,
specifically in the University of the Punjab. Furthermore, in Pakistan, there is a dearth of
studies which explore the interaction of students among themselves to collaboratively
contribute to the development of their writing skills in English. This is important because
in the higher-level English classrooms, the large number of students make it impossible
for the teacher to give extensive and individual feedback to students, on their essays.

Moreover, the results of the present study are significant in highlighting the
importance of peer assessment and peer feedback in developing the critical skills of the
learners. This was due to the responsibility of assessment bestowed upon the students as
well as the dialogue sessions during peer feedback. The students were compelled to use
their analytical ability to develop a critical outlook during peer assessment and feedback
practices. Consequently, it may reduce the students’ teacher dependence and encourage
them to share the teacher’s workload of assessment.

In addition, this study may prove to be a groundwork for successful implementation

of peer assessment and feedback practices in future in Pakistan, to upgrade the writing skills
of the students. These assessment practices have proved to be effective in most of the
second language learning settings and with proper implementation in our context, it may
prove to be fruitful. Further, this study proposed measures to be taken, for successful
implementation of peer assessment and peer feedback practices. It may prove to be a way
forward to bring a change in the teaching, learning and assessment of writing skills of the
students.

Objectives of the Study

The objectives of the study investigate whether peer assessment and peer feedback can
improve the English language writing skills of the students. Furthermore, the study also
examines that if the writing skills of the students are enhanced, then which subskills of
writing, may improve more than others.

Research Questions

1. Are the students able to learn and improve their writing skills through peer
assessment and peer feedback?
2. Which sub-skills of English language writing skills are improved more, as
compared to others, owing to peer assessment and peer feedback?
Majid & Islam 107

Methodology
To determine the effect of peer assessment and peer feedback on the writing skills of
students, it was essential to design the study in a way where students were practically
made to write the essays, assess them and give feedback to their peers. Based on the
theoretical underpinnings of the study, a conceptual framework was developed to evaluate
the extent of improvement in the writing skills of the students owing to peer assessment
and feedback practices. The present study used Multiple Baseline Time Series design as it
allows a repetition of interventions, where it is impossible to reverse to the baseline
condition (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009). Writing skills is such a variable that a change in it
through peer assessment and feedback could not be reversed and every intervention of
essay writing task only added to the behavior of the student. Hence, this longitudinal
design helped in examining the trends in the data, at multiple time points, before, during,
and after an intervention (Marczyk, DeMatteo & Festinger, 2005).
In experimental studies, threats to external and internal validity are unavoidable.
To ensure external validity, several pre-requisites were defined about the sample of
students used in the study. For instance, the students were enrolled in a Bachelor Honours
degree programme at the University of the Punjab. They had a background of previously
studying in public or private institutes due to which they had a diverse social and linguistic
background and if any other group matches these pre-requisites, the study may be
generalized.
Furthermore, to explain the internal validity of Multiple Baseline Time Series
Design, Gay, et al. (2012) have given a profound explanation of how the use of this
design eliminates the two major internal threats of ‘history’ and ‘instrumentation’.
History may pose as a problem in time series design because some event or activity may
occur between the last pretest and the first posttest. Therefore, in this experimental study
the presence of a control group made it possible to observe any changes in the two groups
due to any unavoidable circumstances as the difference would be evident in the results.
The second threat of instrumentation may appear to be a threat if only the researcher
changed the measuring instruments during the study (Gay, et. al. 2012). This did not pose
as a problem in this study as the instruments were kept the same during the entire
experimental study.
In addition, Multiple time series design essentially involves the addition of a
control group to the basic design and this eliminates instrumentation as validity threats
(Gay, et al. 2012). Hence, a control group resolves the issues of internal validity in a
quasi-experiment because the researcher has little or no control over the quasi-
independent variable and other related variables (Bordens & Abbott, 2018). Furthermore,
the presence of a control group allows to assess whether any post treatment changes in
performance would have happened anyway if the treatment had not been introduced at
that time (Bordens & Abbott, 2018).
Effectiveness of Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback in Pakistani Context 108

In this study, the target population was the undergraduate students enrolled in the
Bachelor programme at the Center for Undergraduate Studies, University of the Punjab.
Two intact groups were selected through cluster random sampling, out of the five
available intact Bachelor classes. It was crucial to gain access to the students in a
scheduled class, as they were required to write essays and then peer assess them.
Therefore, the intact class of students selected as the experimental group had 27 students
while the control group had 22 students. The data was collected from the two groups
simultaneously over a period of one semester (almost 14 weeks) following the procedure
shown in the figure below.

Experimental group Control group

Essay writing Essay writing

Peer assessment Teacher assessment

Peer feedback Final draft

Final draft

Figure 1. Data collection procedure

As illustrated in the figure above, the data collection procedure for the students of
experimental group, required them to write an essay in the class. Those essays were
photocopied and allotted a fictitious number for anonymity. Each student was given an
essay to peer assess based on a rubric. The students were asked to give written feedback
along with oral feedback during the feedback sessions. After the feedback, the students
were asked to write a final draft of the essay. This intervention was repeated five times on
alternate weeks.

On the other hand, the students of the control group were asked to write an essay,
in class, on the same topics as the experimental group. However, their essays were
assessed by the teacher against the same rubric that was used by the students for
assessment. These students also wrote a final draft after the teacher’s assessment and
feedback. To ensure that the students write a creative essay without any role of rote
learning, they were given the topic right before the activity in class, and it was different
from the common topics attempted in the board examinations.
Majid & Islam 109

The instrument used to collect the quantitative data from the students, was
through the rubric (see Appendix A) which was used to assign scores by the students,
during peer assessment. The rationale of using a rubric in the present study was to ensure
a transparent process of assessment among the students. It provided the students with a
clear guidance about the subskills to be assessed in the essays. In addition, it laid down
specific guidelines and descriptions to rank and score the essays which streamlined the
process of assessment. It served as a scaffold for the students, especially for the low
ability students who could have found peer assessment a daunting task.

The rubric was adapted by the researchers, from a study by Lundstorm and Baker
(2009), who used it as a rubric to grade essays during peer review activity by the students.
The reason of using this particular rubric is that it covers the global aspects of writing
skills, for instance organization, cohesion, grammar, vocabulary, spelling and punctuation
etc. To determine the inter-rater reliability, two expert teachers of English language with
more than ten years’ experience of teaching English essay writing were asked to rate three
different essays using the rubric. The scores on each essay by the two raters were
averaged. Since the two scores by each expert varied by one point, the average score was
accepted as the final score. Similarly, to ensure the validity of the rubric, it was shared
with three English language experts who reviewed the rubric and agreed it to be valid,
after the suggested changes by them.

Effect on Writing Skills through Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback

The data collected during the interventions was analyzed through different analysis to
evaluate the effect on the writing skills of the students. First, the scores of the essays,
attained by the students were analyzed through One- way repeated measures ANOVA to
determine the overall improvement in the writing skills of both the experimental and
control group. Then to evaluate which subskills of English language improved more
according to the students’ evaluation during peer assessment, paired samples t-test was
administered. It is noteworthy to mention here that the scores attained by the students
were only used to determine whether they were capable of objectively scoring essays and
whether it helped in their cognitive development. Hence, the students were clarified that
the scores would not be used for any summative or formative assessment that could
influence their grading of the subject English that they were studying in their
undergraduate programme.
Effectiveness of Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback in Pakistani Context 110

Furthermore, since the improvement in the writing skills of the students could not
only be measured through the peer assessment scores of the students, hence the researcher
also analyzed the students’ essays through content analysis to evaluate whether there was
any substantial effect on the students’ writing. Table 1 reports the performance of the
experimental and control group students in all the five interventions of essay writing
activity. One- way repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyze the scores attained by
the students against the rubric provided to them for assessment.
Table 1
Overall mean scores of all the five essays of experimental group and control group
N Essay Essay Essay Essay Essay Sig. Wilks’ Eta
1 2 3 4 5 p<0.05 Lamda
Mean Mean Mean Mean Mean
Experimental 27 18.37 19.07 18 19.96 20.56 0.003 0.510 0.490
Group
Control 22 13.59 15.73 17.55 18.55 17.59 0.000 0.332 0.668
Group

Table 1 shows the mean values of the five interventions of essay writing for both
the experimental and control group. It can be noticed that if we compare the mean of
essay 1 with essay 5 for both the groups of students, there is an increase in the mean
values. It is evident that both the experimental and control group display statistically
significant results as the significance value for both the groups is p < 0.05 implying that
there was an overall improvement in the writing skills of both the groups. In this study, the
control group not only resolved the issues of internal validity of the experiment but also
displayed the natural progression in the writing skills of the students in a traditional classroom.

It is noteworthy that the students of the experimental group attained scores on

their essays through peer assessment while the students of the control group were scored
by the teacher, against the same rubric used for peer assessment. Yet, it would be unfair
to compare the findings of two groups as they were assessed by different assessors (peers
and teacher) of which, peer assessors were not even equally qualified for assessment.
Hence, it was difficult to evaluate whether the students’ assessment was reliable to be
accepted as true evaluation of the essays and reflective of actual improvement.

Therefore, to determine whether the students of the experimental group displayed

any improvement in their writing skills, the researcher conducted two different analyses.
The first one was based on the scores given by the students to their peers against the
rubric. While the second analysis was conducted by the same teacher who assessed the
students of the control group in the form of content analysis of the essays written by the
students of the experimental group. The results of the both the analyses are presented in
the section below.
Majid & Islam 111

Effect of Peer Assessment and Feedback on the subskills of English writing skills

To evaluate which subskills of English language writing skills improved more, according
to the students’ evaluation during peer assessment, paired samples t-test was administered
and the mean scores of the first essay was compared to the mean scores of the fifth essay.
Table 2
Comparison of the first and last essay scores of peer assessment of experimental group
Essay 1 Essay 5 Mean t Sig.(2- Eta
Difference tailed)
Mean SD Mean SD
Content 3.07 1.07 3.52 0.89 -0.444 -2.000 0.056 0.143
Organization &unity 3.00 0.88 3.52 0.89 -0.519 -2.331 0.028 0.173
Coherence & Cohesion 3.22 0.85 3.26 0.86 -0.037 -0.161 0.873 0.001
Vocabulary 2.81 1.00 3.41 0.89 -0.593 -3.049 0.005 0.263
Grammar 2.89 0.89 3.37 0.97 -0.481 -2.229 0.035 0.160
Spelling& Punctuation 3.37 1.21 3.48 0.85 -0.111 -0.431 0.670 0.007
N=27

This table gives a detailed description of the extent of improvement in each

category. The results clearly show that there is a statistically significant increase in the
mean scores of three subskills: ‘Organization and unity’, ‘Vocabulary’ and ‘Grammar’.
Hence, it suggests that the students showed significant improvement in these three
categories. Apparently, the maximum improvement is witnessed in the sub skill
‘vocabulary’ with a mean difference of -0.593 in the essay scores. The second significant
improvement is noticeable in the sub skill ‘organization and unity’ with a mean difference
of -0.519 in the scores of the essays. The third evident improvement was observed in the
sub skill ‘grammar’ with a statistically significant mean difference of -0.481 in the essay
scores. It is interesting to notice that the mean difference in all the categories is a negative
value reflecting that there is an overall improvement in all the categories, but only three
showed a more statistically significant improvement. It is noteworthy that these findings
are only based on the scores provided by the students to their peers hence they may not
reflect the true findings. Therefore, the content analysis by the teacher was also
considered necessary to determine the improvement in the writing skills of the students.
Effectiveness of Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback in Pakistani Context 112

Content Analysis of the Essays

This study used the framework of deductive content analysis proposed by Mayring (2000)
for content analysis depicted in figure 2.

Figure 2. Model of deductive content analysis (Mayring, 2000)

Graneheim, Lindgren and Lundman (2017) explain that qualitative content

analysis is a method to analyze qualitative data, which concentrates on finding the
meaning of the subject, context and emphasizes upon the variations occurring in the text.
This is a research method in which data is interpreted through the systematic
classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns. The purpose of
conducting a content analysis was particularly to study the improvement in the subskills
of writing, hence deductive content analysis was deemed appropriate. Mayring’s (2000)
content analysis framework illustrates that the research questions lead to the development
of the main categories and their descriptions. These descriptions in turn give rise to the
coding rules for the categories. The categories are revised, and a quantitative analysis is
conducted according to the relevant method. Therefore, the essays were thoroughly
analyzed for the process of developing subcategories from the main categories.

There were 27 students in the experimental group and each student wrote 5
essays. Every essay was written in two drafts; the first one, which was also used for peer
assessment and peer feedback and then a final draft of the same essay, written after
receiving feedback. To determine which aspects of writing skills improved more, the
researcher observed the changes in the fifth essay as compared to the first essay.
Majid & Islam 113

Therefore, for every student, the first and the fifth essays’ first drafts were chosen for
content analysis. The reason to choose the first draft of both the first and fifth essay was
that those essays were written in the class in the presence of the teacher. On the other
hand, the final drafts were always written at home after the students had received peer
feedback. Apparently, the students might have sought help from various sources to
improve the final draft of the essay and thus they did not reflect the true improvement in
their final drafts of their ability to write well. Consequently, 54 essays were selected and
used as sample for content analysis.
During the content analysis, the number of errors in the first essay, were
compared to the fifth essay. The number of students vary in the first essay according to
the students who made errors in the relevant subskill. Those students were omitted in the
counting who did not make errors in the relevant subskill in the first essay. Thus, it was
evaluated whether the students were able to exhibit any improvement by the fifth essay or
not for those who made errors in the first essay. The results are presented in table 3.
Table 3
Comparison of the first and last essay of experimental group through content analysis
Category Description Sub category/ Examples of errors No. of No. of sts. Percentage
sts. with who of sts. who
errors improved in improved
in the 1st the 5th
essay essay
Content The content of the essay Some of the content was 19 7 37%
should be completely relevant irrelevant.
to the topic. There should be a Too general content.
thorough development of Essay was concise and lacked
ideas. details.
Organization The content should be Essay written in one paragraph 14 3 21%
organized into proper only.
paragraphs as introduction, No proper division of paragraphs.
main body and conclusion Unorganized ideas in paragraphs.
accordingly.
Coherence There should be a good Poor connection between 16 4 25%
& cohesion progression of ideas with paragraphs.
proper transition of paragraphs No flow of ideas.
using discourse markers or No topic sentences.
topic sentences. Lack of discourse markers.
Vocabulary There should be use of Repeated use of the same words. 24 8 33%
appropriate vocabulary, a No use of synonyms or idioms.
variety of words and suitable Use of common vocabulary.
idiomatic phrases.
Grammar There should be correct use of Incorrect sentence structures. 25 6 24%
forms of verbs, tense and Incorrect use of tense, verb form
structure of the sentences. or parts of speech.
Spelling The spelling of the words in Spelling errors. 16 6 38%
the essay should be correct.

Punctuation There should be correct use of Lack of punctuation. 14 3 22%

punctuation marks and Incorrect punctuation.
capitalization.
Effectiveness of Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback in Pakistani Context 114

The table of content analysis reveals the percentage of students who showed
improvement in the fifth essay. The results in table 3, paint a different picture because
through the Paired samples t-test, a significant improvement was noticed in ‘organization’,
‘vocabulary’ and ‘grammar’. While, through content analysis the maximum improvement
was noticed in ‘content’, ‘vocabulary’ and ‘spelling’. However, the improvement in each
subskill is so minute that we cannot consider peer assessment and feedback effective
assessment practices in our context. Therefore, we can conclude that although there was a
subtle improvement in each category, but it was evidently not significant.

Discussion
Several studies have been conducted worldwide to ascertain the effectiveness of peer
assessment and feedback on second language learning (Gencha, 2018; Quynh, 2021; Wu
& Schunn, 2021; Yüce & Aksu Ataç, 2019). Most of the studies showed favorable results
despite the limitations involved in the process. In this study, in the Pakistani context, the
findings reveal that the students displayed a minor progression in their English language
writing skills. Overall, some students showed improvement while for some others,
although the scores had increased but the quality of writing did not.
The evidence lies in the findings of the content analysis which does not exhibit
much improvement in the writing skills of the students. This reflects that peer assessment
and peer feedback did not bring about a substantial improvement in the writing skills of
the students. This is also confirmed through the comparison of the results of the
experimental group with the control group students. We learn that both the groups
performed equally as they both demonstrated a slight improvement in the writing skills.
Hence, it may be assumed that peer assessment and feedback practices may have not been
able to outperform the traditional method of teacher assessment in Pakistani context.
To gain an insight into the intriguing results of this study, we take into account
the achievement of both the groups involved in the experiment. It cannot be denied that
the students of the experimental group felt that they had gained more knowledge about
the techniques of writing an essay. This was evident from the comparison of the students’
performance in their last essay compared to their first essay in the various subskills of
writing skills. They believed that they had learnt about the essential aspects involved in
writing a good essay.
Interestingly on the other hand, the students in the control group also showed a
similar improvement in their essays when their performance was evaluated by comparing
the scores of their last essay with their first essay. The students of the control group were
not introduced to any interventions, rather their essays were evaluated by the teacher
against the same criteria that was used by the students during peer assessment.
Majid & Islam 115

These findings are very important as we may imply that in the Pakistani context,
peer assessment and peer feedback may not contribute exceptionally to enhance the
English language writing skills of the students. Apparently, the reason may be the teacher
dependent culture in our education system where the students entirely rely on the teacher
in the classroom (Yasmin, et al., 2019). The students of the experimental group did not
show a substantial change because they were more dependent on the teacher’s assessment
rather than peer assessment scores. Most of the students were also unsatisfied with peer
feedback and complained that it was insufficient. While the students of the control group
also displayed no substantial improvement in their writing skills. The reason may be the
teacher’s inability to provide extensive feedback to the students.
In Pakistan, mostly there is a large number of students in an undergraduate class
of compulsory English subject. This is emphasized by Jokhio, Raza, Younus and Soomro
(2020), who maintains that in Pakistani public sector universities’ context, English
language teaching and learning takes place in large-sized classes (Akram, 2017; Khurram,
2018). It becomes almost impossible for the teachers to invest time in providing the
students with extensive feedback on a creative writing assignment. They mostly assign
grades to the students and generally discuss the errors made by most of the students in the
class. Consequently, there is no improvement in the writing skills of the students.

However, we cannot overlook a slight progression in experimental group

students’ scores of the subskills of writing that emerged in the findings of this study. The
overall findings of quantitative analysis provide evidence that the students improved in
‘organization and unity’, ‘vocabulary’ and ‘grammar’. While the results of the content
analysis by the teacher, show a subtle improvement in ‘content’, ‘vocabulary’ and
‘spelling’. Overall, both analyses display a development in vocabulary after the
interventions. The reason may be that reading others’ essays may have introduced them to
new words and this exposure enhanced their vocabulary. Most probably, they might have
incorporated the newly learnt vocabulary in their own essays. Similarly, the students
learnt from reading others’ essays that how their peers generated and organized their
ideas into different paragraphs.

Furthermore, in Pakistan, English language is largely taught through Grammar

Translation Method (Akram, 2017; Rahman, 2010), hence, grammar is the most
important aspect of writing skills during teaching and assessment. Therefore, the students
also paid particular attention to identifying grammatical errors in their peer’s essays
during peer assessment and feedback. They assumed that they had improved their
grammar after the interventions because of peer assessment. Yet, we learn through the
content analysis that the students reduced the errors, but they could not learn the use of
correct form of verb and tense structure. The reason might be the absence of a teacher’s
assistance and feedback as students rely heavily on their teachers’ guidance.
Effectiveness of Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback in Pakistani Context 116

Furthermore, the slight improvement in the writing skills of the students may also
be because the students had discussions with their peers about the correction of their
errors. They cross checked it with the teacher or the internet to clarify their confusions.
This dialogue between the student and peer assessor not only proved beneficial but also
developed a sense of critical thinking in the students. Zheng, Cui, Li and Huang (2018)
explain that when assessors and assesses are exposed to conflicting ideas, synchronous
group discussion can fill the gaps in their understanding.
In addition, the slight improvement in the subskills of writing may also be
attributed to the use of rubric against which the essays were scored in this study. It is in
line with the findings of Wang (2014), where it was suggested that rubrics may be more
widely used for facilitating students’ peer feedback. The rubric consisted of various
subskills and their descriptors which provided the students with a better understanding of
what they should focus on while writing an essay. Usually, the English teachers in
Pakistan do not use any particular criteria or rubric to assess the essays because of which
the students have never been truly able to understand the scoring process. Hence, the use
of rubric to assess the essays in this study kept them focused on the subskills that were
being particularly focused on during the marking process.
To sum up, we may say that although there is a slight improvement in the writing
skills of the students yet there is no outstanding change in the performance of the students
owing to peer assessment and peer feedback. The results suggest that probably in our
context these assessment practices may need to be implemented under certain conditions
to reap its benefits otherwise it may not prove to be fruitful.

Conclusion
The empirical evidence of this study proved that peer assessment and peer feedback in
this particular Pakistani context, may have failed to demonstrate any outstanding learning
achievement. Although, the students showed a subtle improvement in their writing skills,
but their learning was noticeably insignificant. The performance of the experimental
group’s students was almost parallel to the performance of the control group’s students,
who were evaluated by the teacher. It implies that peer assessment and feedback practices
did not exceedingly enhance the writing skills of the learners maybe because they rely
more on their teacher’s assessment and feedback.
Peer assessment done formatively, helps the students to assist one another in
planning their learning, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, target areas for remedial
action, and develop metacognitive and other personal and professional skills (Topping,
2017) and this is what Pakistani students need to do to excel in their writing skills. It
becomes challenging for an individual teacher to provide extensive feedback to a large
strength of students in class (Wu & Schunn, 2021), hence, if the students are trained to peer
assess one another, they would be more productive through collaborating with one another
Majid & Islam 117

and may be able to contribute to one another’s learning of writing skills. Hence, peer
assessment and peer feedback practices may prove rewarding in our context if they are
implemented after rigorous training of the faculty and students. Through this we might be
able to reap benefits of peer assessment and feedback to enhance the poor writing skills of
our students the way other second language learners across the globe have done.
Recommendations
This study concludes that peer assessment and peer feedback could not largely improve
the various aspects of English language writing skills of the students. One of the reasons
may be because the students consider teacher’s feedback more reliable than their peers’
feedback. Hence, in our context of teacher dependent learning environment, a radical shift
in the assessment process may prove to be counterproductive. This is supported by
Vanderhoven et. al. (2015) who suggests that students used to a teacher-led assessment
can get frustrated when the teacher feedback opportunities are totally replaced by peer
feedback. Therefore, a mixed model of assessment may be developed where the students
may receive scores and feedback from both teacher and peers. The teacher should also
provide feedback in addition to peer feedback, as it will provide satisfaction to the
students. This corroborates with the ideas of Tsui and Ng (2000) who explain that teacher
comments tend to induce more revisions to the macro-structures of a text, whereas peer
comments have the specific roles of enhancing a sense of “real” audience in the students,
raising the students' awareness of strengths and weaknesses of their own writings,
encouraging collaborative learning and fostering an ownership of text.
Our classrooms have a large strength of students, and it becomes difficult for the
English language teachers to give individual feedback on the essays (Arshad, 2017).
Hence, if we may implement peer assessment and feedback along with the teacher’s
assessment in English classrooms, it would not only share the teacher’s burden but
develop a sense of independent learning in the students. However, considering the
reliability issues of peer assessment, the students’ assessment scores should not be
included in the summative assessment. The purpose of implementing peer assessment and
peer feedback will be to develop critical ability and taking responsibility of their own
learning, in the students. Therefore, peer assessment and feedback may prove useful, if it is
introduced as a complementary assessment process, along with the teacher’s assessment.
Moreover, the students seemed dissatisfied with their peers’ feedback as they felt
that the feedback they received, was insufficient. Keeping this in view, it may be
suggested that instead of having only one peer assessor, if multiple peer assessors give
feedback, then maybe the variety of feedback is more helpful for the student. This is in
line with Ashenafi (2017) who explains that students receiving feedback from multiple
peers perform complex revisions of their work and produce higher quality products. If
one assessor in unable to give satisfactory feedback, then the students may gain a better
insight about their errors from the feedback of the other peers.
Effectiveness of Peer Assessment and Peer Feedback in Pakistani Context 118

Another suggestion is intensive training sessions for the students, before

commencing peer assessment and peer feedback in the classroom. This may allow the
students to learn how to conduct peer assessments and peer feedback sessions. In
addition, peer assessment may prove more useful if the students collaborate with the
teachers in developing the assessment criteria. These practices involving students as
active partners in the assessment process give them the opportunity to develop their
capacity to self-regulate their learning (Ion, Sánchez & Agud, 2019).

Considering the results of previous studies based on peer assessment in enhancing

the writing skills of the students, it may be concluded that if implemented with proper
training with the sole purpose of learning of writing skills, peer assessment and feedback
practices may also prove beneficial in Pakistani context. We need to promote these
assessment practices as they reduce teacher dependence, helps in sharing the teacher’s
burden, encourage collaborative learning and develops higher order thinking in the students.

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 APPENDIX A
Essay Scoring Rubric
Category Poor (1) Needs Improvement (2) Satisfactory (3) Good (4) Excellent (5) Score

Content No thesis statement; Not clear thesis statement; Clear thesis statement; Clear thesis statement; Good development of
Not relevant; Inadequate development Limited development of Thorough development of thesis statement;
Not enough to evaluate thesis; Mostly relevant to thesis; No irrelevant completely relevant;
topic; Lacks detail sentence; Appropriate length suitable length
Organization No organization Some organization; Possible attempted Suitable paragraphing and Highly effective
/ unity evident; ideas random, relationship between introduction, body, topic sentences; basically organizational pattern for
related to each other ideas not evident; no conclusion; ideas grouped unified ideas ; follows convincing, persuasive
but not totask; no paragraphing/ grouping; appropriately; some unity standard organizational essay; content relevant
paragraphing; no unity suggestion of unity of ideas patterns and effective
Sequence/ Not coherent; no Partially coherent; limited use Partially coherent; shows Mostly coherent and Coherent and convincing;
Coherence & relationship of of transitions; attempt to relate ideas, still persuasive, progression of good progression of ideas;
Cohesion ideas evident relationship within and ineffective at times; ideas; successful attempts to uses transitional devices
between ideas unclear; some effective use of use logical connectors and logical
may occasionally use logical connectors within connectors
appropriate conjunctions paragraphs
Vocabulary Meaning obliterated; Meaning inhibited; limited Meaning seldom inhibited; Meaning not inhibited; Meaning clear;
extremely limited range; some patterns of errors adequate range, variety; adequate range, variety; sophisticated range,
range; little to no may be evident; much appropriately academic; basically idiomatic; variety; often idiomatic;
knowledge of repetition some use of idiomatic infrequent errors in usage often original, appropriate
appropriate word use expressions choices
regarding meaning
Grammar Dominated by errors; Problems in simple/complex Effective but simple Effective complex Good use of complex
Does not communicate structures; Frequent errors of structures; Some errors of structures; Few errors of structure; No errors;
ideas agreement, tense and word agreement, tense and word agreement, tense and word Completely meaningful
order. order; Meaning clear order; Meaningful
Spelling & Little or no command Evidence of developing Basic punctuation, simple Occasional mistakes in basic Uses mechanical devices
Punctuation of spelling, command of basic spelling, capitalization, mechanics; for stylistic purposes;
punctuation, mechanical features; formatting under control; sophisticated punctuation; may be error-free
paragraphing, frequent, unsystematic errors systematic errors few spelling errors
capitalization

Total Score: _________________