Peer Assessment of Design Reports in a First-Year Introduction to Engineering Course

This paper describes development and implementation of a peer assessment activity for first-year students in an Introduction to Engineering course. Being a large enrollment course, instructors have struggled with providing meaningful, formative feedback to students, particularly on written design reports. Peer assessment was adopted as a way to address this issue without increasing the grading burden on instructors and teaching assistants. In teams of 45, students reviewed each other’s reports, providing comments and scores using an instructorcreated rubric. Following the assessment activity, rather than simply revising the individual reports, students worked in teams to develop a single improved team report using what they had learned from peer assessment. Students were surveyed to assess perceived learning gains. Results of the survey combined with instructor observations suggest that the peer assessment activity met the desired goals. Peer assessment will likely be utilized in future versions of the course and expanded to other writing assignments though some modifications may be necessary to address current limitations.