Investigating the Effect of Peer-Assessment on Students’ Writing Strategy Use

Abstract

The main Purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of peer-assessment on students’ writing strategy use. Qualitative supplement quantitative method was used for the study. It focused on 1st year Banking and Finance Department students of Jimma University. The department had four groups (A, B, C & D) of which two groups were selected by using random sampling technique. Accordingly, section A and B were selected and included in the study. Section A was assigned as comparison group whereas section B was assigned as treatment group. Closed-ended questionnaire was used at the end of the intervention to collect the quantitative data from the students. Moreover, qualitative data were collected from the students using journal writing. The purpose of collecting qualitative data was to assess the perception of students on the use of peer-assessment. The quantitative data were analysed using independent sample T-test. The result of the analysis showed that the students in the treatment group improved their writing strategy use than the students in control group. This indicates that the use of peer-assessment as intervention showed a significant effect on the students’ writing strategy use (t (58) = 2.856, p = 0.006. Besides, Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. The result of the qualitative data was in agreement with the results of the quantitative analysis. It showed that the students well perceived the use of peer-assessment in writing classroom. Therefore, it is recommended that the use of peer-assessment in addition to teacher assessment is better than using teacher assessment alone to improve writing.