Understanding the rules of the game: marking peer assessment as a medium for developing students' conceptions of assessment

Students need to understand assessment processes in order to succeed in higher education. However, recent research has identified how difficult it is for students to become absorbed into the assessment culture of their disciplines, with a recognition that providing written criteria and grade descriptors is not enough to make this tacit 'knowledge' transparent to novice students. This paper reports on an exercise where sports studies students used assessment criteria to mark their peers work coupled with an assessment of their peer marking and feedback comments. The latter was included to encourage students to engage seriously with the peer assessment. Analysis of the data indicates considerable benefits for the students in terms of use of criteria, awareness of their achievements and ability to understand assessment feedback.