Teaching Technical Writing through Student Peer-evaluation.

Teaching Technical Writing through Student Peer-evaluation

W. Jensen and B. Fischer. 2005. Journal of technical writing and communication 35:95-100.

"Individual students in two different sections of an undergraduate civil engineering laboratory were tasked with preparing three professional-quality laboratory reports. [In one section,] the teaching assistant and/or instructor used established criteria to grade the first two reports ... [while in the other section, the reports] were peer evaluated by assigned fellow students within the same laboratory section using identical grading criteria. The peer evaluated section had a higher class average than the teaching assistant/instructor graded section on the first two reports. The third report prepared by students from both sections was graded by a professional educator/architect without knowledge of a student's class section. The peer evaluation students also had a higher class average on the third report, suggesting that the peer evaluation process may have positively contributed to those students' writing skills."