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Due to the fixed school start in Norway in August of the calendar year of students’ sixth birthday, the age span in one class is up to twelve months. This can impact academic performance both in the early years and later. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between birth month and mathematics performance by paying attention to the content and cognitive domains addressed in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015. In Norway, the TIMSS 2015 included four cohorts, enabling a comparison between grades. We find significant correlations between birth month and mathematics performance overall as well as in all content and cognitive domains for grades 4, 5 and 8. Furthermore, the gap in mathematics results between the youngest and the oldest in a cohort is less in grade 9 than in grade 4. We suggest that these findings have implications for mathematics teachers’ practice.

Individuals’ need for extended working lives depends on the design of pension systems, including occupational pensions. This article examines variation in occupational pension generosity and coverage in Norway’s private sector. The analysis consists of microsimulations of future pension outcomes for cohorts born in 1953, 1963, 1973 and 1983. The first set of calculations estimate average pension levels for individuals with different pension packages who retire at 67; the second, how much longer workers in different cohorts will have to work in order to obtain a replacement rate of 70%. The overall finding is that while all workers in Norway must extend working life in the future, those with the most generous occupational pensions can retire about four years earlier than those with the least generous packages. This shows that the design and regulation of occupational pensions are crucial to the debate on extended working lives.

This paper presents preliminary results of the incorporation of the peer review process into the laboratory component of an organic chemistry course for second year undergraduate students in the biological sciences in Italy. The study was conducted on a class of 64 students and incorporated a training session, a double-blind peer revision of laboratory reports, and a final debriefing phase with evaluation of the activity both by the instructor and by the students. Improvement of students’ writing skills was monitored together with their ability to provide a feedback review and to critically analyze the feedback comments received. The results indicate that the participants made moderate improvements in their ability to write a laboratory report and were able to evaluate the quality of their peers’ writing but also struggled with various aspects of the peer review process.

It is often argued that states do not have any special obligations towards economic migrants, and that skills-based selection of migrants is morally unproblematic. In this paper, I argue that even if one does not endorse special obligations towards economic migrants, there are good reasons to be critical of skills-based selection due to its effect on the citizens in the country they are migrating to. I introduce the issue of the impact of migrant selection on domestic populations by considering Blake’s arguments against racial selection in immigration. He argues that racial selection is wrong because ‘[…] making a statement of racial preference in immigration necessarily makes a statement of racial preference domestically as well’. In this paper, I consider whether a similar case can be made against selecting migrants based on their marketable skills. I begin with a short overview of skills-based selection and some of the normative arguments put forward in favour of it, before considering Blake’s argument. Thereafter, I show how Blake’s example of race differs significantly from selection based on skills, in part due to the nature of identification with race and skills. However, I argue that the effects of skills-based selection on domestic population also need to be considered in any normative argument proposing such migration regulations. These effects include changes in our evaluations of equality and citizenship, negative impact on the social bases of self-respect, as well as specific disadvantages for segments of society and a negative effect on social mobility.

Women shoulder a heavier burden of family work than men in modern society, preventing them from matching male success in the external labor market. Limiting working hours is a plausible way to level the playing field by creating the possibility of less gendered roles for both sexes. But why then are heavily regulated European labor markets associated with a smaller share of women in top management positions compared with liberal market economies such as in the United States? We explain this puzzle with reference to the difficulty of ambitious women to signal their commitment to high-powered careers in regulated markets.

Although research on peer review in second language teaching has elaborated from diverse perspectives in the last 3 decades, most were conducted in the context of writing classes. Little knowledge is available about peer review of advanced second language learners in other language abilities, such as translation. To fill this gap, this case study explored how advanced second language learners provide feedback in a Chinese-English translation class, as well as the effectiveness of peer review in enhancing L2 learners’ translation quality. Data were collected from 30 English-major students, including their translation drafts, drafts with peer feedback, and final revised paper. Upon analysis, we found students adopted various forms of feedback. To be specific, they mainly used direct and indirect corrective feedback; metalinguistic corrective feedback was less used. Through further investigating the accuracy rate of revisions to peer feedback, we found peer review has a positive influence on improving students’ translation quality. The findings may shed light on the types of feedback adopted by students, and the practicality of peer review activity in translation education.

Several recent studies examine social aspects of online peer review writing environments, but little of this work focuses on how resulting social interactions affect student writing over time. Seeking to trace explicit and covert dialogic influences across middle school writers’ work, we analyze classroom texts created online to show how teachers’ initiating texts and peer reviews become critical pieces of students’ classroom writing and response. Our analysis first grouped the texts by phase (i.e. teacher’s initiating texts, first drafts, peer review feedback, revised drafts) to capture overall characteristics of these writing processes and products, then looked at each student’s writing across time to understand how multiple artifacts and writing cycles informed the work. This analytical approach foregrounds the dialogic nature of online writing and shows how a class responds to assignments. The empirical micro-analysis complicates classroom writing and revision research by showcasing how teachers and peers become un-credited “co-authors” of students’ texts. Beyond theorizing that students take up such influences in their work, as existing work has done, we trace how these texts influence students’ writing and peer review, examining the roles of teachers and peers in writing processes and products.

In teaching-learning process, the grade computation is an important part of the critical-thinking process. When faced to assessments of many students, teachers are confronted to a mass of smart data. Lately, the strategies of peer evaluations, in which the students express a critic on different understanding of the taught contents, have been substantially developed in the literature. This paper presents an easy-to-read visual approach integrated with a learning platform to analyze correlations and distances between the grades given by a teacher and the grades produced by students through self-assessments and peer reviews. We observed that the both aforementioned metrics can rank differently the students; hence we propose to aggregate them by producing a single rank. Thus, our framework supports the lecturer either by selecting possible candidates for future class monitors or by focusing on students who need to be more involved in the teaching-learning process. Finally, for the highest ranks, our framework offers a regression model to predict the teachers' grades values only based on the students feedbacks.

In this teaching paper, the author reviews the teaching and learning literature on student peer review in higher education to generate a list of best practices, as well as a list of accessible and immediate research questions. The author then reflects on their experience implementing these in the form of a peer review-intensive senior capstone seminar in the Spring of 2019. While the course received high evaluations and allowed students to generate a useful writing portfolio, finding evidence of the effectiveness of extensive peer review remains difficult and uncertain. The paper includes a number of templates and options for building an extensive peer review process into upper-level political science courses, and discusses the trade-offs experienced in scheduling class time for peer review and teaching students how to give (and receive) effective comments on each other’s work.

Mental health problems among young people have increased in recent decades, particularly among middle-class youth, a development often related to increasing achievement pressure. This paper explores how young people from the financial and cultural middle classes in Norway experience school stress and their parents’ values and practices concerning school achievement. Based on interviews with 53 boys and girls, aged 15–17, the study identifies 2 narratives. The first narrative is told by youth from the financial middle classes. They talk about their parents’ explicit demands, and tie the parental pressure to their achievement-related mental health problems. The second narrative describes a ceaseless self-drive, told by youth mainly from the cultural middle class. They portray their parents’ expectations as implicit rather than explicit, and they see mental health problems as achievement related – but not related to their parents. In both narratives, however, self-worth relies on achievement. The study was funded by the Norwegian Directorate of Health and the Ministry of Children and Families.

Questo articolo discute le questioni metodologiche legate al disegno, all’implementazione e all’analisi dei dati di un esperimento sul campo che fa parte del progetto “Piccoli Che Valgono”, finanziato da “Fondazione Con i Bambini”, che verrà condotto in alcune scuole secondarie di primo grado italiane e mirato a valutare l’efficacia del peer-learning e del peer-assessment. Queste attività possono essere svolte a costo zero e con impatti potenzialmente molto positivi per l’apprendimento e lo sviluppo delle capacità relazionali dei bambini. C’è un ampio dibattito su come disegnare e implementare le attività di peer-learning e su come renderle efficaci e valutabili. Dopo aver menzionato la letteratura pedagogica (interessata a come implementare le attività nelle classi e ai principi pedagogici sottesi) e quella economica (più focalizzata sulla misurazione e sull’isolamento degli effetti delle attività di peer-learning), descriveremo il protocollo sperimentale e le principali problematiche metodologiche riguardanti la misurazione dei risultati, l’attuazione nelle classi e il design.

AIM To test the feasibility of a remote writing programme, Writing to Improve Nursing Science (WINS), for nursing scholars in low- and middle-income countries and assess its impact on scholarly writing and dissemination. BACKGROUND The ability to write and publish scholarly manuscripts is critical for successful nursing research careers. Yet, there is a lack of resources to appropriately mentor nurse scholars in this area. This is especially true for low- and middle-income countries with fewer resources and a dearth of doctorally prepared nursing faculty. INTRODUCTION We adapted an existing university-based writing class to mentor 10 nurse scientists through the writing and publication process utilizing three components: online didactic training, remote one-to-one mentorship and an in-person peer-reviewed writing workshop. METHODS Ten nurse faculty from 10 countries selected via competitive application developed manuscripts with remote mentorship and online training for 6 months. Then, an in-person workshop was held to conduct peer reviews of manuscripts. Mentorship continued for an additional year until the manuscript was either published or the participant no longer wished to pursue publication. RESULTS All participants prepared a manuscript and were trained in manuscript writing, editing, and the peer review and submission process. To date, four manuscripts have been published. DISCUSSION The Writing to Improve Nursing Science Program is a feasible model to increase publications among nursing faculty or students globally and allow the sharing of resources across countries. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING POLICY Innovative solutions for sharing of intellectual resources, such as this program may contribute to improving the evidence base globally. Nursing research policies should include a mentorship component to increase publications to improve nursing practice and related patient outcomes.

Writing is difficult for English Department students in Indonesia. Students commonly have low ability to write and have very limited time to practice this skill. To overcome students’ problems in writing, the use of peer assessment can be an appropriate way to improve fluency in writing since this research is held to: (1) elaborate the roles of peer assessment to build fluency in writing classes, (2) identify the types of activity in writing class by implementing peer assessment, (3) explore the strengths of peer assessment to build fluency in writing, and (4) to prove the effectiveness of peer assessment to build fluency in writing.This is a mixed method research. The subjects of this research are nine students of TI.B class in academic years 2016/ 2017. To collect the data, some instruments such as field note, observation, documentation and test were used. Interactive analysis and statistical analysis (t-test) were applied to analyze quantitative data. Furthermore, statistical analysis using SPSS 20 used to analyze quantitative data.The results of the research are: (1) the use of peer assessment minimizes students’ apprehension in writing, (2) constructive activities are important to lead students in conducting active and critical learning, (3) peer assessment is meaningful to build students to be authentic writers and readers, (4) peer assessment is effective to build students’ fluency in writing indicated by the result of hypothesis test.

Active teaching strategies utilizing high-impact practices to encourage integration of learned material and creative thinking were incorporated into a "care of the older adult" course in a baccalaureate nursing program. The "Shark Tank" assignment requires small groups of students to develop and present an innovation that improves the quality of life for older adults; the class peer reviews the project using a rubric. The "brown bag" assignment requires students to meet with an older adult in their home to conduct a medication reconciliation and teaching session. Both assignments received positive feedback from students in anonymous course evaluations.

The writer conducted this research because the students of the non-English department, FITK UIN Semarang could not write text well. They still wrote text with random way, and they did not understand the social function, the generic structure and the language feature of the text. Using peer review in writing class, the writer intended to improve students' writing especially recount, descriptive, procedure, and cause and effect texts. The had two problems: 1). How is the implementation of ‘peer review' writing for the FITK students of 2014/2015?; 2). How is the writing improvement of FITK students of 2014/2015 after applying ‘peer review’ writing? There are some texts introduced to the FITK students. The students are expected to be able to write text. Through classroom action research implementing peer review, the students’ writing ability had been improved well.

It is important that Software Engineering and Information Technology students learn techniques to conceive solutions that are centered on the users. Users are often from many different cultures; hence an awareness of cultural differences is an important concept for students to grasp. Particularly when class sizes are large, access to users that would allow the students to practice User-Centered design principles is not feasible. Different methodologies must be pursued to teach students the principles of design. This paper presents peer review and personas, archetypical users of an application, as techniques for teaching User-Centered conceptual design to a large cohort of students. We provided a persona from a set of six personas, each authored to represent two different cultures (Australian or Vietnamese), to 153 undergraduate students at an Australian university to conceive design solutions for the persona. Later, the students were exposed to all of the personas and then they peer reviewed each other's design artifacts. From the comments left by the students we conclude that the technique has met its learning objectives.

Yrkesfaglig kunnskap er en forutsetning for bærekraft og samfunnssikkerhet. Likevel er yrkesfagene i indre og ytre press forårsaket av digitalisering, globalisering og lav status. I artikkelen diskuteres nedvurderingen av yrkesfaglig kunnskap i skolen med Bourdieus teori om kulturell kapital. Et sentralt funn er at en systemisk miskjennelse av yrkesfaglig kulturell kapital i utdanningssystemet foregår gjennom symbolsk makt, i sanksjonering av yrkesfaglig kunnskap og premiering av boklig kapital. Sosiologiske begreper om klasse og kulturell kapital kan ved avdekking av miskjennelsen av yrkesfaglig kunnskap bidra til anerkjennelse av praktisk yrkesfaglig kunnskap som vesentlig danning av unge.

Children vary in the extent to which they benefit from parenting programs for conduct problems. How does parental mental health change if children benefit less or more? We assessed whether changes in conduct problems and maternal depressive symptoms co-occur following participation in the Incredible Years parenting program. We integrated individual participant data from 10 randomized trials (N= 1280; children aged 2–10 years) and distinguished latent classes based on families' baseline and post-test conduct problems and maternal depressive symptoms, using repeated measures latent class analysis (RMLCA) and latent transition analysis (LTA). Classes differed mainly in severity of conduct problems and depression (RMLCA; 4 classes). Conduct problems reduced in all classes. Depressive symptoms did not change in most classes, except in a class of families where conduct problems and depression were particularly severe. Incredible Years led to a greater likelihood of families with particularly severe conduct problems and depression moving to a class with mild problems (LTA; 3 classes). Our findings suggest that for the majority of families, children's conduct problems reduce, but maternal depressive symptoms do not, suggesting relative independence, with the exception of families with severe depression and severe conduct problems where changes for the better do co-occur.

Knowledge about factors in school that can promote adolescents’ mental health is of great value for national health policies and health promotion work. This cross-sectional study investigated levels of mental wellbeing measured with the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale and the relationship with teacher support and class belonging among 574 Norwegian high school students, aged 16-17 (55.1% boys). The data stem from the COMPLETE-project. Results showed that students reported an average mental wellbeing of 3.50 (SD 0.88, range 1-5), with significant differences across gender, study specialization area and socioeconomic status groups. Class belonging partially mediated the observed relationship between teacher support and mental well-being after adjusting for covariates. The findings indicate that a supportive teacher may be a significant factor for both students’ class belonging and mental well-being, and suggests that school policies and programs should include a focus on promoting teachers’ supportive behavior.

This study aims to investigate the effects of the two-step blended computer mediated communication (CMC) peer review process (Word commenting followed by Zoom discussion) in an English writing course for 29 Chinese EFL learners, and their perceptions of this mode. Compared with previous studies, the findings of this study are encouraging: 1) the proportions of revision-oriented comments students gave reached at a high level of above 85% of the total comments; 2) students gave more local comments, but the ratio of revision-oriented comments in global areas to revision-oriented comments in local areas was more balanced (approximately 40% vs 60%); 3) the adoption rates of revision-oriented comments in text revision were also at a high level (63%-73%). What’s more, most students held positive attitudes toward this mode, perceiving it useful in their text revision and development of writing ability. 65% of them expressed their willingness to attend this mode of review activities in the future. This study reveals that the two-step CMC peer review process with Word commenting followed by discussion via online video conferencing system can be used as a useful tool in EFL writing class. This study contributes to the current research on CMC peer review since most previous studies investigated effects of peer review using text-based CMC tools and little research has been done on speech-based tools.

To advance environmental justice in communities, this paper analyzed the way the attributes of green spaces have been defined and evaluated in the literature. We identified and examined 72 peer reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2018, which explored green spaces and social groups in the U.S. To report findings systematically, we collected indicators used in the articles and assessed which attributes of green spaces the indicators represent. We found that most articles focused on access more than other attributes (such as ecological benefits, visual and esthetic values, amenities, sociability, and safety). This finding was more salient in the articles that examined green spaces together with race and ethnicity, income class, or age group. The articles that considered green space attributes with gender focused more on evaluating safety, sociability, and amenity. For inclusive planning, design, and management of green spaces and parks, urban planners and park managers must pay attention to diverse attributes to which different social groups are sensitive.

As the “NASIG Core Competencies for Scholarly Communication Librarians” makes clear, the responsibilities associated with scholarly communication work in libraries are so “broad and amorphous” that the “full suite of competencies is beyond the reach of even the most accomplished librarian.” It is, therefore, increasingly important for all academic librarians to have not just a theoretical understanding of scholarly communication topics, but also the ability to actively engage in and manage related projects. The question then is how are master of library and information science (MLIS) programs preparing aspiring academic librarians for these roles?

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Gender, Place and Culture on 24.04.2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1462769. This article examines the fathering practices of men in mobile work in the petroleum industry in Norway. In particular, it analyses the spatial mobility of these men and how their absence and presence impact their fathering. Drawing on insights from gendered migration and mobility studies, fathering and ‘new material’ approaches, this article nuances the understanding of current fathering practices by showing how physical absence does not necessarily imply emotional absence and by identifying changing fathering practices among skilled workingclass men. This study also suggests that these fathering practices challenge dominant ideas of parenting, which tend to be based on studies of mothering practices. This study uses life course interviews, observations and ‘travel along’ experiences. The findings demonstrate that being attentive to absence and presence, the agency of materialities, gender and fathers’ perspectives may broaden our understanding of fathering in mobile work and beyond.

This exploratory classroom research investigated how prolonged one-to-one teacher modeling (the teacher demonstrating desirable behaviors as a reviewer) in feedback to student reviewers’ essays may enhance their audience-aware feedback and affectivity in peer review. Twenty-seven EFL Taiwanese college students from a writing class participated in asynchronous web-based peer reviews. Training was conducted prior to peer reviews, and the teacher modeled the desirable reviewer behaviors in her feedback to student reviewers’ essays to prolong the training effects. Pre-modeling (narration) and post-modeling (process) reviews were analyzed for audience-aware feedback and affectivity. Reviewers’ audience awareness was operationalized as their understanding of reviewer–reviewee/peer–peer relationship and reviewees’ needs of revision-oriented feedback on global writing issues to improve the draft quality. Paired t-tests revealed significantly higher percentages of global feedback and collaborative stance (revision-oriented suggestions), more socio-affective functions, and a higher percentage of personal, non-evaluative reader feedback and a lower percentage of non-personal evaluator feedback in the post-modeling reviews. Such a difference, however, was not found in review tone. Overall, our findings confirm that EFL student reviewers can learn peer review skills through observation of their teachers and use of complementary tools such as checklists.

The traditional classroom paradigm has been lately experiencing innovative changes with the advent of new technologies. This paper reports on the results of an exploratory study that puts into practice a blended learning approach in a university English course which favoured face-to-face as well as online meetings. Within this learning paradigm, the objective of this treatment was to analyse how the use of Twitter, a microblogging tool could help to increase students’ confidence in English. This would imply a novelty in the field of language learning through computers, as it incorporated social networking to an explicit structured vocabulary task of ESL learning, which allowed peer revision of tweets and feedback from the instructor. Results showed that students largely preferred to recast rather than to carry out metalinguistic prompts as a feedback. Conclusions suggested that this blended learning approach contributed to internalize students’ own target form errors through corrections to and from their peers. Using Twitter in the language class was an informal, easier and less intimidating way of starting to use new vocabulary in the target language.

Defining and assessing child abuse and maltreatment has long been a challenge to both researchers and practitioners in social work. Taking an intersectional perspective, this article explores the meaning of class and ethnicity in professionals’ investigations and assessments in child protection referrals. Overall, findings show that class power was particularly actualised for caseworkers facing parents with high social status. In these cases, the parents often resisted the investigation and the caseworkers therefore had difficulties in disclosing or defining the abuse. In comparison, culture was often made relevant in cases involving minority ethnic parents, where abuse was often actualised as corporal punishment. This practice tended to be seen as a cultural issue rather than related to social problems. In these cases, class power was not articulated. The article sheds light on intersections of class and ethnicity that may affect social work practice with children at risk of abuse and maltreatment.

This article describes the transition of an oral and maxillofacial radiology course from a traditional lecture format to an interactive case-based, team-based, interdisciplinary, and intraprofessional learning model in advanced dental education. Forty-four postdoctoral dental students were enrolled in the course over a twelve-week period in the fall semester 2012. The class consisted of U.S.- and foreign-trained dentists enrolled in advanced education programs in various dental disciplines. The course faculty preassigned interdisciplinary teams with four or five students in each. The class met once a week for an hour. Ten of the twelve sessions consisted of a team presentation, individual quiz, team quiz, and case discussion. Each member of a team completed peer evaluation of other team members during weeks six and twelve of the course. The final course grade was a composite of individual and team quiz grades, team presentation, and peer evaluation grades. The overall class average was 90.43. Ninety-five percent of the class (42/44) had total team grades equal to or greater than total individual quiz grades. The objective of creating a new case-based, team-based, interdisciplinary, intraprofessional learning model in advanced dental education was achieved, and the initial student perception of the new format was positive.

(Peer review in undergraduate chemistry course: exercise that aims to promote the appropriation of scientific discourse)In this article we describe a peer review exercise used in undergraduate chemistry course in which the students wrote and prepared critique of scientific texts produced by other students in the class. We investigated, based on the critical comments made by the peers, evidences of the appropriation of scientific discourse and a better understanding of its practice by the students. Additionally, we present our own conclusions on the use of such exercise applied to an organic chemistry course offered to undergraduate chemistry students at a Brazilian public university.Resumen (Revisión de pares en la enseñanza superior de la química: una actividad didáctica para la apropiación del discurso científico)En este artículo se describe un ejercicio de revisión de pares empleado en un curso de la licenciatura en química, en el cual los estudiantes escribieron y prepararon una crítica a los textos científicos producidos por otros estudiantes de la clase. Se investigaron, con base en los comentarios críticos realizados por los pares, las evidencias de la apropiación del discurso científico y una mejor comprensión de su práctica por los estudiantes. Adicionalmente, se presentan nuestras propias conclusiones sobre tal ejercicio aplicado en un curso de química orgánica ofrecido en una universidad pública brasileña.

In studio-based education, students collaboratively work on projects that allow them to learn aspects of design through experience on authentic artifacts, often for outside clients. In our Object-Oriented Design and Development class, this means work on open-source projects, such as Mozilla Servo, OpenMRS, Sahana Eden, and Apache Ambari, as well as our own Expertiza project. This paper recounts five years of experience awarding extra credit for activity that students engaged in to help fellow students. These activities included doing extra peer reviews of classmates' work, helping other teams with their projects, writing various types of quiz questions, and answering questions on the Piazza message board. The incentives often led to “gaming” behavior, where students engaged in activities simply to earn points, with very little benefit to their fellow students. Consequently, the scoring policy has been changed several times during the five-year period. We show how student behavior changed as the rules changed, how we have enhanced review quality, improved responses and response time on Piazza, and transitioned students away from merely helping with project setup, and toward helping other students with the substance of their projects.

We are living in a digital era in which everybody who is not participating will be left behind. Yes, that is true. We are all chased by the rapid changes of this era, and we are running faster and faster to catch up with the latest technology. It seems as if we are all haunted to go deeper and deeper into the “tunnel of the digital era”. The same thing happens in the world of education. However, if we notice more closely, there are still some aspects that can be done directly without necessitating the use of technology. One example is student-student direct interactions. Technology can be used to facilitate peer assessments, not replace student-student interactions. One central research question to be answered in this paper is: What are male and female Indonesian students’ points of views towards peer reviews? Despite all the sophisticated technology we are all exposed to in this era, peer feedback should still be done directly with real, face-to-face communication in a classroom setting. Indirect online communication or chatting through social media may cause a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of one’s ideas. Data for this study was taken from 39 students’ opinions in their journals. They were Academic Writing class students of the English Department of UKSW Indonesia, in Semester II, 2015-2016. Most students stated that direct and interactive face-to-face communication is still needed. It proves that digitation cannot replace everything. Real communication with real peers in the real - not cyber - world can enhance successful learning. The findings also reveal that differences were found between male and female students’ reactions or perceptions towards peer reviews.

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Adams. J. (2014). Art for life: Race, gender, disability and class - critical discourses around participation in arts education: iJADE 2013 conference issue. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 33 (3), 288-290, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jade.12069.This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

Peer assessment can be important in developing active and independent learners, as well as providing more and faster feedback in large classes, compared to marking done by tutors. In addition, the evaluative, critical stance required by students in order to assess their peers' work encourages the development of higher-order cognitive skills. Changing roles from being assessed to being an assessor can also improve students' ability to judge and improve on their own work. However, peer assessment does have potential problems and there is some debate as to the appropriate academic level at which to implement it, the kinds of feedback that are given and the ways in which students respond. In addition, there is little evidence that peer assessment has an impact on academic performance. This research reports the results of an online peer assessment exercise for a macroeconomics essay conducted in a large Economics 1 class at Rhodes University. Of the 800 students, about half participated in the peer assessment ...

This article examines the teaching of information literacy skills to accounting students through a case study in which the authors, an accounting professor and a business librarian, collaborated to address students’ lack of knowledge about finding and incorporating credible, valid, and accurate sources of information into their research. Together, the authors developed a class project that required students in a governmental and nonprofit accounting class to identify a critical issue in the field, research the background of the issue, form an opinion, and, ultimately, select information sources that support their findings and arguments. The students then participated in a peer review process where they evaluated the work of their classmates. Using an information literacy score computed based on an analysis of student bibliographies, a statistically significant improvement from students’ first to final drafts was found. In addition, it was found that students became more comfortable evaluating the credibil...

At Denison University students in the advanced lab, PHYS 312: Experimental Physics, write substantial manuscript-style laboratory reports on three major experiments carried out during the semester. Thoughtful peer review can be an effective way to enhance student learning and confidence in their scientific writing skills. The development of purposeful assignments and subsequent class discussions of scientific writing and the peer review process, the execution of a peer review workshop, and samples of student work are presented in this paper.

We describe a system whereby students in a proof-based mathematics course review and critique the proofs written by their peers. This peer review system—which is roughly modeled on the way peer reviews are used in teaching college composition—requires students to read mathematics more actively than they might if only reading proofs that are known to be correct. In this way, the potential for mistakes in the students' work is used as a pedagogical tool that can benefit the entire class.

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a net-based peer review process for improving Chinese adult e-learners’ English writing ability. A class of 36 students participated in this study, which lasted one school year of two semesters. Participants were divided into three groups according to their English writing abilities at the beginning of the study. They attended regular synchronous classes and took writing assignments home. The feature of this experiment is that their writings were submitted for peers’ reviews from another group. At the end of each semester, an online writing contest was organized and all the participants took part in order to examine learning outcomes. A survey at the end of the study was also conducted to obtain students’ perceptions of the process. The result of the study shows that all the participants obtained satisfactory results, but the students with lower writing ability made more progress than those with higher ability. The finding also indicates that students with higher writing ability tend to become discouraged if they are grouped with lower-ability students for too long.

This study provided a voice to gifted elementary children attending three very different schools that endeavored to meet their atypical academic needs. Although educators have theorized that special programs for gifted students benefit gifted children academically and contribute positively to their social and emotional development, there is limited research to support this belief. The phenomenological framework used in this study allowed 27 gifted elementary students to present their perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of extension class environments. The results demonstrate that while challenging instruction was clearly important for the emotional well-being of the advanced learners, it went hand in hand with the schools' approach to the social and emotional development of their student populations. The schools' objectives clearly influenced students' perceptions of emotional safety, acceptance of diversity, and teacher-student and peer relations in the schools. This finding differs from previous research results, which suggest that if a gifted child's cognitive abilities are catered to, his or her social and emotional needs will automatically be met. Whereas this study found that the social context of the school played an important role in the talent process, we also found a strong relationship between program type and socioaffective outcomes.

Peer review of teaching is relatively new in many academic programs. Primarily focused on formative, rather than summative, assessment, peer reviews differ in types of artifacts and teaching behaviors observed during the review. The purpose of this study was to begin a preliminary investigation of peer review of teaching among internal faculty. Two faculty members in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) at Wichita State University participated in this study. Both instructors agreed to have one class session each videotaped within the same week. Two comparable 10-minute presentation segments were selected and edited from the recordings. The recordings were then viewed and rated in counter-balanced order by 17 faculty peers in CSD programs. Ratings were collected using a 5-point Likert scale rating form, which was created for the study. Results were found to be generally positive with mean ratings of 2.23 (s.d = 1.19) and 2.41 (s.d. = 1.19) for the two instructors. Interestingly, both videotapes exhibited an order effect when low responses were removed. These findings are presented as well as questions to be examined in future studies.

The interactive functions of weblogs facilitate computer-mediated peer reviews for collaborative writing. As limited research has been conducted on examining the training effects of peer reviews on students’ peer comments, their revision quality, and their perceptions when composing in weblogs, the present case study aims to fill the gap. Thirteen freshman students participated in an EFL writing class, in which they wrote four formal assignments in weblogs. Peer review training was conducted in the second and third assignments to facilitate the collaborative process. Comparisons between reviews without and with training (i.e., the first and the fourth assignments) indicate that the students made more revision-oriented peer comments and had more success in revising their compositions, although they adopted less than 50% of the comments for revision. The students’ perception data show that blog-enhanced instruction stimulated their interest in improving their writing. Yet, not all of the participants felt confident about providing useful peer feedback. With the empirical evidence presented in the study, blogs could serve as a suitable platform for EFL writing instruction concerning giving opportunities for interaction. As training is essential to make computer-mediated peer review effective, the study supports the crucial role played by language teachers when incorporating Internet technologies into writing instruction.

This paper reports on a study designed to investigate (a) whether peer review is an effective pedagogical activity with adult Chinese students in the teaching of second language (L2) academic writing and (b) how factors such as perceptions of the influence of peer reviewers’ L2 proficiency, previous experience with peer review, feedback preferences, and culturally-based beliefs and practices relate to the effectiveness of the pedagogical activity. Participants were 20 English-as-an-L2 learners from China who were enrolled in an academic writing class for postgraduate students at a Singaporean university. Data included first drafts of an academic writing assignment, written peer comments, revised drafts of the assignment, responses to a questionnaire, and interviews. Quantitative analyses of the peer comments and revisions to the drafts show that significant improvement in the revised drafts was linked to peer feedback. Further statistical analyses indicate that the learner variables of interest did not affect the effectiveness of the peer review activity. In addition, qualitative analyses of the questionnaire data and the interviews reveal a general acceptance of peer review as a socioculturally appropriate pedagogical activity for Chinese students. The results of the study are interpreted with an understanding of its limitations, and directions for further research are also discussed.

Writing assignments were introduced to a large introductory Oceanography class at UCSB. The assignments evolved, over a period of 10 years, from papers handed in to the instructor, to online peer reviewed assignments using the calibrated peer review methodology. The assignments required students to acquire and plot data and use these data plots to create scientific arguments in support of a theory. The topics addressed plate tectonics, the Indian monsoon, the Earth's climate, and the world fisheries. The course activities were managed by the EarthEd software package, which supports course management functions such as online writing and peer review, image storage and upload, auto-graded homework problems, and course grade computation. Access to Earth data is integrated within the EarthEd software through the “Our Dynamic Planet” CDROM, Global Ocean Data Viewer, and links to other data browsers available on the web. Data representations are captured as images, uploaded to the student's image library (in Ear...

Feedback has a powerful influence on learning, but it is also expensive to provide. In large classes it may even be impossible for instructors to provide individualized feedback. Peer assessment is one way to provide personalized feedback that scales to large classes. Besides these obvious logistical benefits, it has been conjectured that students also learn from the practice of peer assessment. However, this has never been conclusively demonstrated. Using an online educational platform that we developed, we conducted an in-class matched-set, randomized crossover experiment with high power to detect small effects. We establish that peer assessment causes a small but significant gain in student achievement. Our study also demonstrates the potential of web-based platforms to facilitate the design of high-quality experiments to identify small effects that were previously not detectable.

Peer assessment and peer feedback are considered alternatives to teacher-based feedback and their effects on writing have been substantially researched. This study aims to examine the perspectives of a group of university students, who are mainly second language learners, on peer feedback in an English writing class. Many of the studies conducted on the perspectives of students regarding peer feedback provided conflicting findings. While some found that peer feedback was viewed with doubt and encouraged little revision, others found it helped learners to recognise their strengths and flaws in writing. This study aims to better understand students’ perspectives regarding peer feedback and to identify the concerns raised by students involved in the study. The findings from this study revealed that the participants of the study had a positive perspective on the use of peer feedback and on the use of an online peer feedback tool. The study also showed that past experience did not contribute towards a negative perspective of peer feedback among the participants. The findings from this study are useful for future research in designing a better peer feedback process and improve its implementation.

SUMMARY Peer assessment is a valuable tool for developing student skills whereby they gain insight into evaluating their own level of understanding within a subject. It encourages student participation in the processes of learning and assessment, but is not widely utilized. This paper reports on the issues raised by this method of assessment when used to mark clinical case studies in a large anatomy class of first year medical students.

SYLLABI CAN GREATLY AID AN INSTRUCTOR'S EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS; INFORM STUDENTS IN WAYS WHICH ENHANCE THEIR LEARNING; MITIGATE CERTAIN POTENTIAL PROBLEMS IN STUDENT BEHAVIOR; HELP OTHER FACULTY MEMBERS, ADJUNCTS, AND POTENTIAL TEACHERS; AND NURTURE AND FACILITATE ACCOUNTABILITY TO STUDENTS IN THE CLASS, TO COLLEAGUES IN CURRICULAR POLICY DECISIONS AND IN PEER REVIEWED PERSONNEL CASES, AND TO THE PROFESSION.

Raywat Deonandan1, Premal Patel2, Robyn Winterbottom31Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, 2Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, 3School of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, CanadaAbstract: Students at the University of Ottawa, many of whom were targeting a career in medicine, were surveyed to determine their attitudes and expectations regarding a new student-run peer-reviewed journal for the health sciences. A number of students reported that the existence of the journal would make them more likely to take a class with a written component, while a majority would work harder on that assignment. Those intending to pursue postgraduate or professional studies were most likely to recognize the value to their careers of having a publication history. We argue that student-run medical communication endeavors such as this are beneficial both for enhancing student careers and for contributing to a more thorough educational experience.Keywords: journal, literacy, publication, student, undergraduate, education

Reflective writing in the form of three reflective writing tasks has been used in our Distributed Systems Design course to develop and assess students' thinking and learning. Case studies with real-life scenarios are developed in a Problem based Learning approach where students work in teams to identify learning needs and develop a viable solution in an iterative approach. The same case study was applied in two sister institutions with similar curricula and different policies. In the control group institution, it was mandatory to follow a teacher-centered approach. In the experimental group institution, students followed the CAT set “assessing skills in problem solving” to solve the case, write their arguments and the collected evidence for their positions in argumentative essays. Essays were debated in class to reach consensus and reflections were documented for reciprocal peer review. The outcomes of the essays and peer reviews were used as formative measures of student learning and as a vehicle for providing critical feedback to the students. In this paper, we will describe the experience, present and analyze our data comparing the students' outcomes from the two institutions over three terms. We will also describe the conducted classroom research and students' attitudes and difficulties.

Peer reviews are the generally accepted mode of quality assessment in scholarly communities; however, they are rarely used for evaluation at college levels. Over a period of 5 years, we have performed a peer review simulation at a senior level course in molecular genetics at the University of Guelph and have accumulated 393 student peer reviews. We have used these to generate a summary of the metrics of this exercise. Our calculations show that student peer marks are highly variable and not suitable for numerical performance evaluation at the university level. On the other hand, student peer reviews can clearly recognize substandard performance. Hence, peer reviews can be used for the assessment of “pass/fail” type of assignments. Interestingly, student peers struggle to distinguish between good and excellent performance. These finding provide provocative insight on the process of peer review in general. We comment on the implications of this in-class simulation for research communities and on potential pitfalls of peer reviews.

It is common that students peer-review other students' writing, and these reviews are useful information to instructors, both on the particulars of the essay being reviewed, the feedback provided and the overall progress of the class. This paper describes a novel approach to summarising feedback in academic essay writing. We present a summarisation method for identifying and extracting representative opinion sentences from each feedback. Sentiment score-based techniques are employed and SentiWordNet is used as a linguistic lexical resource for sentiment summarisation. We evaluate our approach with the reviews written by a group of 50 engineering students.

There are many different approaches to student peer assessment. In this paper I lay out the pedagogical philosophy behind my own use of student peer reviews. These should not only be seen as adding to the amount of formative feedback in a class, nor are they only about the development of certain higher-order cognitive skills. Properly aligned with an overall assessment strategy, peer reviewing can help build a stronger learning community. I describe such a strategy and my experience using PRAZE, an online tool for student peer reviewing, as well as students' response to the tool and its use.