An International Meeting of the American Accounting Association 2005 Annual Meeting August 7–10, 2005 San Francisco, California Come to the City by the Bay!

Effective Learning Strategies Forum
Monday, August 8, 2005

Session 16
Building a Better Peer Evaluation

Presenter:
Carole Shook, University of Arkansas

Description:
Group work in accounting classes is becoming prevalent. A peer evaluation is a good tool to motivate students to provide the maximum effort, and therefore learn the most possible.

One of the primary challenges with peer evaluations is that students sometimes give everyone in the group all the points whether everyone deserves them or not. The challenge becomes to develop a peer evaluation that gives students guidance on how to judge the performance of group members, since students sometimes don’t have this skill.

This session will share an effective peer evaluation that consists of two parts. The first part provides specific guidance on ten desired outcomes, with a description of possible behaviors, and a suggested point distribution. Students are then provided a second page to record scores and provide support for the ratings. Each part stresses the importance of the peer evaluation process, and why accurate ratings are essential.

The peer evaluation described has provided significantly more accurate ratings than previous evaluations that have been used. By emphasizing desired behaviors, students are also aware of what is expected and tend to accept poor ratings better.

Participants of this session will be provided a copy of the peer evaluation.

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