Abstracts - Earli

other equal status students (Topping, 1998) - can be a valuable tool to align the assessment withthe group task. Karau and Williams (1993) showed in their meta-analysis that peer assessment ofindividual contributions to group tasks had a strong influence in ensuring that each group memberdid a fair share of the work. Peer assessment is increasingly applied in higher education to enhancethe quality of group learning, discourage free-riding and reward individual input (Falchikov &Goldfinch, 2000; Sluijsmans, Dochy, & Moerkerke, 1999; Topping, 1998). While there is a fairamount of studies on peer assessment in groups, there is little consistency in the peer assessmentformats. This study investigates two variables that may account for the success or failure of peerassessment of group tasks in collaborative learning in a controlled experimental setting: (a) thestructure of a peer assessment format (high/low) that is used to assess the contribution of peers togroup tasks; and (b) the domain expertise of students (high/low) while working on an ill-structuredgroup task. Specifically, this study investigates how both variables affect the quality ofcollaborative learning performance, students’ perceived group efficiency, and the reliability ofpeer assessments in the context of teacher education.Effects of formative peer-assessment on writing performance: What is the most beneficial role ofthe assessee?Sarah Gielen, University of Leuven, BelgiumFilip Dochy, University of Leuven, BelgiumLiesje Tops, University of Leuven, BelgiumElien Peeters, University of Leuven, BelgiumIn this study on the effects of formative peer-assessment on writing performance of students in thefirst year of secondary education, the effect of three different roles of the assessee is examined. Allthree conditions require a revision of the essay after feedback by the assessee, but in the firstcondition the assessee indicates needs in a request for feedback, in the second the assesseeexplains the consequences of the feedback for his work to the teacher, and in the third conditionthe assessee has no extra requirements. We can conclude that our manipulation of the role of theassessee had no impact on learning, nor on direct revision behaviour. We could not find adifference in progress on the short term, nor in performance on the long term. Although there wasa difference in revision behaviour, this seemed to be mediated by the type of criteria that werediscussed in the feedback.The impact of feedback content and writing ability-level of the sender on the perception of peerfeedback and learningJan-Willem Strijbos, Leiden University, NetherlandsSusanne Narciss, Technical University Dresden, GermanyThe shift towards student-centered learning arrangements places a high emphasis on students toassume responsibility for their learning. Peer assessment is well-suited to increase students’responsibility: i.e. equal status students judge a peers’ performance with a rating scheme or aqualitative report (Topping, 1998). Many peer assessment researchers stress that the feedbackabout a performance is essential (Sluijsmans, Brand-Gruwel, & Van Merriínboer, 2002), but theevidence for learning effects is scarce (Van Gennip, Segers, & Tillema, 2005). Recent research on‘informative’ tutoring feedback reveals that ‘hints and revision proposals’ as part the feedback(e.g., give an example), rather than ‘evaluative’ feedback (e.g., 3 out of 5 are correct), fosterspersistence and improves student performance (Narciss, 2004). Students’ also often expressconcerns about the fairness and usefulness of peer assessment, which may be related to sendercharacteristics (Leung, Su, & Morris, 2001). In this study we will investigate the effect of– 44 –