The Utility of a Peer Review Application in Interdisciplinary Teamwork Arrangements

Project and challenge-based learning typically require students to navigate personal and professional relationships within a team, in order to collaboratively solve authentic problems. These collaborations are often interdisciplinary in nature - an arrangement that adds increased complexity to the team's functioning. This is due to distinctions in approaches, epistemologies, ethos or jargon. The ability to provide (and receive) appropriate and constructive feedback to peers, within the team, is a key skill that can enhance team functioning and ultimately, output. Furthermore, it is a competence that aids in lubricating social and work impediments that may be causing bottlenecks to creativity, or the manifestation of ideas. The aim of this study, set within three different interdisciplinary bachelor modules, is to determine to what extent the use of the 'Buddycheck' application for peer review, is appreciated by students and teachers. The application, hosted within the learning management system of the university, allows students to rank their peers' performance according to teacher-set criteria, as well as through flexible open-format feedback; in order to facilitate opportunities for enhanced communication and expectation alignment. We wish to ascertain to what degree team functioning is enhanced through the scaffolded communication opportunities, by highlighting and creating openings to discuss undesirable behaviours, through the feedback application. Preliminary results appear to favour this mode of feedback facilitation, albeit with certain caveats, detailed later. Since teamwork is universal in tertiary education, these insights may be helpful for educators attempting to further improve the evaluation of the process of their projects or challenges.