Peer assessment in writing at preparatory level within a Turkish higher education context: Perceptions, efficacy, and implementation of peer assessment

Assessment has been one of the most crucial parts of education. As the world has been changing and improving in many respects, it is natural for the assessment in the education context to change and evolve. One of the recent changes in assessment is the advent of alternative assessment techniques such as peer and self assessment. Peer assessment, primarily, refers to the assessment of oral performance or written products by peers. There have been a great number of studies related to peer assessment. However, the number of the studies that combined both students' and instructors' perceptions of peer assessment and that analysed both student- and instructor-scoring has been few in the related area. Therefore, this mixed methods study set out to reveal a) how ELT students and their instructor perceive peer assessment before and after the implementation of peer assessment; b) the correlation between students' and the instructor' scoring for the written works of students. To attain these purposes, this study made use of both formative and summative peer assessment types. The participants of the study were ELT students who studied at preparotary school and their instructor for writing class at Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli University, a state university in Turkey. The study lasted for 14 weeks in the Fall Term of the Academic Year of 2019-2020. Data collection tools were questionnaires that included both Likert type and open-ended questions, and semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data were processed via SPSS 22. More specifically, decriptive analysis of SPSS was utilized to analyse Likert-type question in both questionnaires, while Pearson correlation test was employed to analyse the students' and the instructor's scores for four writing assignments. As for the qualitative data emanated from the interviews and open-ended questions of the questionnaires, thematic analysis was utilized. The findings of the study revealed that most of the participants, including the instructor, were keen on integrating peer assessment in classroom practices. Before the implementation of the peer assessment process, the instructor had several concerns. However, at the end of the term, both the instructor and the students were mostly satisfied with the process. Their satisfaction with the peer assessment was also substantiated with the correlation between instructor- and student-scoring. This study presents several implications for not only language learners and instructors but also for curriculum designers, material developers, and administrative staff. Keywords: ELT, alternative assessment, peer assessment, student-scoring.