University examinations are deemed "high-stakes" assessments (Mehrens, 1998), since their successful completion is necessary to progress to the next year and obtain the final diploma. In coining this term, Mehrens wanted to emphasize both the teachers and the institutions' responsibility with regard to evaluation. In French primary and secondary schools, a shift from evaluation conceived as negative to positive has occurred, especially for language learning. Could such a change be implemented at universities? For which purpose and by what means?
For Waring (2008), positive assessment depends mostly on the type of feedback teachers give. In the French university context, feedback is rarely provided to students before assessment. In their criticism of institutional evaluations, Huver and Springer (2011) underline the often fixed, 'essentializing' (p. 289) character of evaluation, which does not accept variation.
Their work echoes Ferrel and Sheppard's major survey of UK universities (EUNIS 2013) which showed that the main source of student dissatisfaction at university lies in the assessment procedures. They also revealed that students rarely have the opportunity to appropriate the assessment tools as well as the criteria for making judgements (p. 3).
In 2022, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (USN) decided to support The Eval+ project based on peer review practices with the aim of designing a concept course flagged with a "positive evaluation" label. The notion of peer review can take a variety of forms: from co-assessment to corrective or appreciative feedback, be it before or after the assessment itself (Lundstrom & Wendy Baker, 2009; Kong, 2013).
This paper will report on the Eval+ project which involves two groups of 25 third-year English degree students who are following a course on Second Language Learning. The peer review session is held before the final oral slideshow-based presentation and has been fully integrated to the syllabus.
The teacher's assessment grid is shared with the students both as a personal and as a peer reviewer checklist. Thus, the assessment criteria are made explicit from the start. We will focus on the level of appropriation of the criteria as it appears in the analysis of the assessment grids.
We assume that some criteria (in relation to visual, written or spoken aspects) will be used more than others. In addition, can a mirror effect be observed?
References
- Huver, E. & Springer, C. (2011). L'Évaluation en didactique des langues. Paris : Didier. Coll. Langues et didactique.
- Kong, Y. (2013. « Peer Review : Exploring Training and Socio-Cultural Influences on Activity Theory. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
- Lundstrom, Kristi and Wendy Baker. (2009). "To Give is Better Than to Receive: The Benefits of Peer Review to the Reviewer's Own Writing." Journal of Second Language Writing 18, 30-43.
