Abstract
The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to determine the extent to which peer assessment in writing influences students. The organization of the data analysis aimed to explore three sub-areas of influence of peer assessment in writing: Did students’ metacognition improve after peer assessment activities? Did students’ attitudes, including motivation, toward themselves as writers and toward the writing process improve after peer assessment activities? To what extent did students perceive themselves transferring their writing process strategies to other contexts? I conducted the study at Sacramento City College in my first-year composition course during the fall semester of 2014. To set the conditions for a study of peer assessment, I first reviewed literature that focused on the writing process, writer’s workshop, formative assessment, peer assessment in writing, and these concepts in relation to metacognition, attitudes, including motivation, and writing process skills transfer. While there was theoretical and empirical literature supporting peer assessment in first-year composition, there was a lack of specific data to answer my questions directly in the context of current first-year composition students at a community college. To collect quantitative data, I used a 4-point Likert scale for a pre-/post-survey, which I analyzed using SPSS software. Due to the framing of the research question and its sub-questions, I determined that the study should be based explicitly on students’ perceptions rather than of their written products. The pre-/post-survey assessed students’ perceptions of their writing processes, including their participation in peer assessments. In order to elaborate on the quantitative findings, I coded the qualitative data from the “Writing Process Self-Reflection.” I used the emergent themes from the students’ responses to develop the narrative examinations explaining the descriptive statistics. The findings showed positive support for the use of peer assessments in writing, specifically regarding students’ metacognition, as well as their perceptions of and motivation towards their writing processes. However, due to some limitations of the treatment, more research is required in order to substantiate the influence of peer assessments on students’ perceptions of writing process skills transfer.