Optimizing the effectiveness of peer feedback in higher education

Due to the attempt to improve the quantity and quality of feedback available to students as well as the numerous potential benefits of peer feedback, there has been a rise in the use of peer feedback in higher education. With this increased use, we should ensure that implementation of peer feedback activities is beneficial to students’ academic achievement and should determine how the benefits of these activities can be optimized. Unfortunately, the existing literature does not provide us with a definite answer to whether peer feedback improves students’ academic achievement, and if it does, which factors influence this improvement. Therefore, in this doctoral research, we aimed to answer these questions.

Similar to any educational intervention, the factors affecting the effectiveness of a peer feedback intervention could include the characteristics of the intervention, the teacher, the students, and the social and contextual environment. In this dissertation, we focused on the intervention characteristics and the student characteristics, because there is potential for teachers to manipulate these characteristics at the grassroots level, as a first step towards optimization of the effect of peer feedback.

This led to the research questions “What is the effect of peer feedback on higher education students’ academic achievement?” and “How can intervention characteristics and student characteristics influence the effect of peer feedback on higher education students' academic achievement?”, which formed the basis of this dissertation.