Running Head: PEER REVIEW TO
Peer Review To Improve Students Writting
Andy Pranata Kemit
Adventist University of Indonesia
Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of peer review in developing the writing skill in English lessons and building positive attitudes towards such skills.Peer review encouraged students to think critically, synthesize information and write about course material rather than incorporate surface information into written assignments. Because peer reviewers can improve the grades on their final papers by offering concrete suggestions to the original authors, students tended to report that the peer reviw process improved their writing skills, and their understanding of concepts and theories. This research demonstrates how peer evaluation can be a positive learning exercise that prompts students to develop higher-order cognitive skills and to improve their writing skills while learning discipline-specific course concepts.
Peer response is a term with wide and varied application, including one-on-one, small group, and whole group response given at various stages of the writing process for many different purposes. The still frequently-found term peer editing further confuses the discussion among teachers, as it suggests an end-stage process devoted solely to local or editing concerns. Based on the scholarly and professional literature, peer response includes any form of student-produced feedback to other students writing. Regardless of the form, any classroom exercise in which students, rather than teachers, become the primary source of feedback regarding how to more effectively convey their ideas and arguments through writing qualifies as peer response.
Peer evaluation is a means of assessment that allows students to participate in the assessment process by evaluating a classmate's written work, but the final grade for students' work is determined by the course instructor. Peer evaluation is a commonly used teaching technique in undergraduate classrooms, the practice of peer review has been studied infrequently. These researchers assert that students benefit from the peer evaluation process through commenting on their peers' written work and from reading comments that peers have made on their papers. Topping agrees that peer evaluation is beneficial to students' learning of course material, because it serves as formative assessment that aims to improve learning while it is happening in order to maximize success rather than merely determine success or failure only after the event. Topping continues by stating that peer evaluation benefits assessors and assessees by: (1) prompting higher order thinking; (2) enhancing students' time on task, engagement, and sense of accountability; (3) helping students identify and fill in knowledge gaps in their work; and (4) encouraging active rather than passive learning in students.
Students' increased time and effort during the peer evaluation process seems to progress students' writing skills through commenting on their peers' written mistakes and developing suggestions of how students can improve these mistakes. The peer evaluation process can also affect students' final paper grades and the quality of students' written work.
But most students have limited exposure to peer response activities because in many English classrooms, writing is presented as a solitary exercise. Students are given instructions on independently developing a thesis, an outline, one or two drafts, and a final copy. Class time is spent handing out format guidelines, sample outlines, and grading rubrics. While overwhelmed teachers conduct speed-conferences with individual students, the rest of the class is asked to sit in silence and work in their secluded writing vacuum.
Peer response, no matter the form, improves student writing to some degree. Though some methods may be less helpful than others, I have not found a study that suggests that peer response hurts the level of writing. But the literature shows that because students are not adequately prepared, teachers do not clearly explain purpose, and the product of the process is so varied, effectively incorporating peer response remains difficult. Both the literature and samples collected from colleagues show that most teachers conduct peer response in the later stages of the writing process, with a focus on mechanics. Much of the research claims that this creates only the appearance of a product. Because focusing on mechanics leads peers to look only for tangible, superficial weaknesses in writing, it does little to prompt the writer to think about how they can better convey their ideas.
The use of peers in the evaluation of teaching is part of a larger trend in postsecondary education toward a more systematic assessment of classroom performance. Many scholars believe that certain aspects of teaching can be assessed only by classroom observation. This study examines the use that peer reviewers make of teaching products, especially peer observation reports, during the promotion and tenure review process. Results indicate that peer observation reports are seen as an important component in evaluating teaching effectiveness, though perhaps not the best indicator of effective teaching. Despite flaws in peer observation instruments, the results from classroom observation are seen as valid and are used in deliberations about faculty teaching performance.
Students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of peer response also play a role. In her study of the attitudes of advanced ESL students toward peer review, Dr. Dina Al-Jamal (2009) found that sixty-nine percent had positive reactions. Peer review was found as helpful with regard to audience and idea depelopment.
Peer revision provides an apportunity for students to discuss and formulate ideas about the content of thier writing as well as to help each other in developing writing skills. It also makes students aware of thier problems in writing through give and take as well as to talk through the task of writting with peers with similiar writing problems (Dr. Dina Al-Jabar, 2005).
Hansen and Lui (2005) advocated peer review for saveral reasons. First, the student can avoid being penalized for errors they do not detect in thier own work. Secondly, it provodes another real audience for students rather than only the instructor. Thirdly, by having to evaluate other students’ paper, they improve thier ability to judge thier own writing. This last point is one quite alien to many students. What’s important is not that the teacher thinks that the students has done well, but that the student knows how to determine if the learner’s done what s/he set out to do in a particular peice of writing.
Rose (2007) recommends other advice for media writers to help them attract and retain target audience readers. These tips include: (1) determining the most important element of the story and fashioning an attention-getting lead around this information; (2) telling stories that compel media gatekeepers and target audiences alike; (3) using vivid images in writing to which readers can relate; (4) employing simple language that avoids unfamiliar acronyms and jargon; (5) writing with active voice verbs to emphasize who or what has done the action in the communication messages; (6) avoiding factual, grammatical, and punctuation errors, as well as misspelled words that can reduce media writers' credibility among target audience members; and (7) revising media writing to develop clear and effective communication messages.
Peer Review Method The purposes of the peer review assignments in a Principles of Public Relations course were to teach students to (1) think more critically about the issues and practices of public relations, (2) synthesize textbook material and apply this information to public relations practices, and (3) increase writing skills. To address these purposes, the researcher modified a writing to learn (WTL) assignment into a three-component graded peer-reviewed activity.
Students were required to identify a magazine advocacy advertisement that attempted to persuade or promoted advocacy for an issue or cause. Students were asked to explain why their chosen advocacy ad defines or relates to public relations by using concepts, models, and theories covered in the text chapters involving communications, ethics, program planning, and/or persuasion aspects. Each of the drafts addressed only information covered in assigned chapters that related to specific characteristics of the advertisements. The first assignment required students to evaluate the advertisement’s audience(s) based on its message, publication, topic and request for action. The second assignment concentrated on the communication or message. Students analyzed the message’s use of language/terms, communication theories or persuasive techniques, design of the advertisement, and their perceived effectiveness of the advertisement. The final paper combined the first two assignments with appropriate corrections and modifications. Students used four elements of the peer review process that included instructions for writing the draft of each assignment, a grading rubric developed by the researcher for students to follow when they graded their peer’s drafts, criteria used by the instructor to grade the peer reviewers’ evaluation of the drafts, and the final or corrected paper assignment. After students completed their first draft assignment, the instructor randomly redistributed the students’ papers and the corresponding advocacy ads to anonymous peer reviewers. Anonymity in the peer evaluation process is important because “efforts to get students to critique peer writing often fail because peer critiquing violates student social norms of not criticizing other students in the presence of a teacher.” All students were given a peer evaluation instruction sheet to assist them in assessing their classmate’s paper along with the grading rubric. The instruction sheet included checklists of chapter information to help reviewers identify deficiencies in their peer’s written work. According to Topping, specific chapter checklists are important to help students clarify how to evaluate a peer’s paper rather than providing students with vague assessment criteria. The instruction sheet also provided peer reviewers with a point scale detailing how they would be graded on their peer evaluation comments. After the students evaluated their peer’s work, the instructor also graded the students’ original draft and the comments provided by peer evaluators. The students writing the draft and the peer reviewers demonstrated their level of knowledge or understanding of the material for the respective assignment. Therefore, students writing the drafts and the peer reviewers each received a grade from the instructor. When the drafts and the peer reviews were returned to the students, the class engaged in discussions about the peer review and instructor comments. Students had an opportunity to defend their peer reviews, while the student authors of the original draft could challenge the peer and instructor comments. This process was repeated for the second draft of the assignment before students revised and submitted their final papers.
In spite of the benefits, peer review has some critic and potential problems. Alison Irvine McMurry states:
In spite of the benefits, peer review has some critic and potential problems. Often the students gave unfocused and unhelpful comments. Other studies found that students were not very critical of student writing, but that they addresed mostly surface errors or grammar not global issues of meaning. But most importanly, they sometimes give advice that does not lead to revision. It because the students are hesistant to ask for clarifications of comments. Often students are unsure if thier peer’scomments are valid abd distrust the opinion of peers. Finally, in some cases, the students do not regard thier peers as a real audience (2004).
Based on these studies, it seems that peer review can be useful. However, a little more information is needed about the effect peer review has on the writing, or in other words, the quality of the text. More information is also needed about the effect peer review has on the students themselves(Alison Irvine McMurry, 2004).
Peer review can result in positive effects on the quality of student writing. Some have suggested that peer review can lead to an improved sense of audience and writing for communication. Peer review may also lead to increased fluency, better focus and idea development, and can address issues of meaning and content. Surprisingly, some researchers suggest that reading essays written by peers may help the student writers more than the peer feedback itself, because it increases awareness of their own weaknesses in writing. In addition, in some cases, effective peer review results in higher quality revisions (Alison Irvine McMurry, 2004).
Furthermore, peer review can result in positive effects in the students themselves. It builds interpersonal skills, such as meaning negotiation, cooperation, and teamwork. Moreover, peer review can help students become better at critical thinking and writing skills, such as evaluating quality of ideas, and measuring soundness and coherence of an argument. It helps students become more autonomous because they gain a sense of ownership and independence about their writing.It can lead to reduced writing anxiety. This leads to increased student confidence.
References
Rose (2007) Journal of College Teaching & Learning – October
2007. Volume 4, Number 10
Dr. Dina Al-Jamal (2009) Umm Al-Qura University Journal of
Educational & Psychologic Sciences. Vol. 1-N0.1- Moharram
1430. January 2009
Hansen, J.G. and Jun Lui (2005) Guiding Principles for
Effective Peer Response. ELT journal, 59/1: 31-38.
Alison Irvine McMurry (2004)PREPARING STUDENTS FOR PEER REVIEW
Ruiling Lu and Linda Bol (2007) A Comparison of Anonymous Versus Identifiable e-Peer Review on College Student
Writing Performance and the Extent of Critical Feedback.
Journal of Interactive Online Learning, Volume 6, Number
2, Summer 2007.
www.ncolr.org/jio
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