Online Peer Assessment on Student Learning Outcomes: A Narrative Review

In recent years, “peer assessment” has been one of the most important educational strategies that researchers and teachers have used to improve the students’ writing skills, motivation, and learning in various fields. This review study was conducted with the aim of online peer assessment on the students’ learning outcomes.

In this narrative review research, through keywords related to online peer assessment on the outcome of students’ learning, the studies conducted in Persian or English languages and written in full text from 2013 to 2023 were searched in reliable scientific databases such as Science Direct, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, SID, and Magiran. The studies that were not in line with the purpose of the research or were published in the form of a letter to the editor were excluded from the study. From the 44 searched articles, 12 were related to online peer evaluation on the students’ learning outcomes and selected.

Evaluation in online environments can be more important than that in traditional classrooms. The use of peer assessment in online learning environments has many advantages, including increasing the timeliness of feedback, providing learning opportunities for the provider and receiver of the feedback, humanizing this environment, and building community. By involving students in the peer evaluation process, meaningful interaction with peers and with the content of the discussed writings increases, which in turn increases the students’ and instructors’ satisfaction with the course. If peer evaluation is used effectively, it has the potential to increase the quality of discourse/discussion and, as a result, the quality of learning in the online environment.

Online assessment by peers is effective on the students’ learning outcomes. However, more studies are recommended to be conducted to determine different aspects and challenges of this intervention.