Reflecting on the Peer Review Process: Features Characterising its Effectiveness

Abstract

Peer review is often utilised as a learning tool, with its myriad strategies and beneficial outcomes across disciplines well documented and established. Such frequent usage arises from the expectation that the implementation of peer review as a teaching and learning tool will lead to successful outcomes involving student engagement. However, the use of peer review is not without its challenges. These challenges include the varied ways of organising the peer review process, learner differences, and the diversity of contexts in which peer review can be situated. There is thus no single strategy that can be successfully implemented in all contexts. Consequently, it can be argued that it would be more fruitful to pay attention to the features that potentially characterise the effective implementation of peer review and understand how particular strategies, when implemented in a specific context, enable the manifestation of such features. Therefore, this reflection examines the peer review process through the observation of a peer review activity conducted during a single lesson. By drawing from a selection of literature on peer review in the teaching of writing, some features characteristic of an effectively implemented and facilitated peer review were identified from the observed lesson. These insights were then applied to inform the strategies employed in another peer review lesson. Although this reflection is situated in the context of teaching academic writing, the insights gained would also be applicable to the use of peer review for teaching and learning in other disciplines.