Student social interactions and peer assessment

Peer assessment is a formative assessment practice that is commonly used in the British Columbian school system. Academic literature supports peer assessment as part of effective formative assessment practice; how students interact during peer assessment, however, is not as well understood. Through a study conducted with grade six and seven students at a public school in a British Columbian school district, this study sought answers to two core questions: "What do students say they understand about the process of peer assessment?" and "What social dynamics do I observe, as my students' classroom teacher, during peer assessment?" Data was collected through a sequence of group mind maps and individual feedback forms. These tools targeted student responses to peer assessment during a short story writing unit. The methodology used a general inductive approach. The findings and discussion reveal that students respond to social dynamics first and teacher-guided procedures second when undergoing peer assessment.