Understanding the Difference Between Self-Feedback and Peer Feedback: A Comparative Study of Their Effects on Undergraduate Students' Writing Improvement.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Lu Q
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8476032 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:One of the best opportunities that undergraduates have to learn to write like a scientist is to write a thesis after participating in faculty-mentored undergraduate research. But developing writing skills doesn't happen automatically, and there are significant challenges associated with offering writing courses and with individualized mentoring. We present a hybrid model in which students have the structural support of a course plus the personalized benefits of working one-on-one with faculty. To optimize these one-on-one interactions, the course uses BioTAP, the Biology Thesis Assessment Protocol, to structure engagement in scientific peer review. By assessing theses written by students who took this course and comparable students who did not, we found that our approach not only improved student writing but also helped faculty members across the department--not only those teaching the course--to work more effectively and efficiently with student writers. Students who enrolled in this course were more likely to earn highest honors than students who only worked one-on-one with faculty. Further, students in the course scored significantly better on all higher-order writing and critical-thinking skills assessed.
| S-EPMC3105927 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Motivational beliefs, such as writing self-efficacy and attitude toward writing, are believed to foster or hinder writing by influencing if one chooses to write, how much effort is committed to writing, and what cognitive resources writers apply. In the current study, we examined self-efficacy for writing self-regulation and attitude toward writing of 2,124 Grade 2 Norwegian students (1,069 girls; 1,055 boys). We investigated if there were differences in each of these beliefs between girls and boys and students who differed in their language status (Norwegian first language, Norwegian and another language both first language, or language other than Norwegian first language). We further tested if each of these writing motivational beliefs made statistically unique contributions to predicting the quality of students' writing. In each of these analyses, we controlled for variance related to individual- and school factors. Girls were more positive about writing than boys, and they were confident about their abilities to self-regulate writing. Students with Norwegian and another language both as first language ("bilingual" students) had a more positive attitude toward writing than the other two language groups. Efficacy for writing self-regulation and attitude toward writing both made statistically significant unique contributions to predicting the quality of students writing, although these two writing beliefs collectively accounted for just 2% of the variance in writing quality scores once individual- and school-factors were controlled. Recommendations for future research and implications of the finding are discussed.
| S-EPMC10616524 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundPeer review is assumed to improve the quality of research reports as tools for scientific communication, yet strong evidence that this outcome is obtained consistently has been elusive. Failure to distinguish between aspects of discipline-specific content and aspects of the writing or use of language may account for some deficiencies in current peer review processes.DiscussionThe process and outcomes of peer review may be analyzed along two dimensions: 1) identifying scientific or technical content that is useful to other researchers (i.e., its "screening" function), and 2) improving research articles as tools for communication (i.e., its "improving" function). However, editors and reviewers do not always distinguish clearly between content criteria and writing criteria. When peer reviewers confuse content and writing, their feedback can be misunderstood by authors, who may modify texts in ways that do not make the readers' job easier. When researchers in peer review confuse the two dimensions, this can lead to content validity problems that foil attempts to define informative variables and outcome measures, and thus prevent clear trends from emerging. Research on writing, revising and editing suggests some reasons why peer review is not always as effective as it might be in improving what is written.SummaryPeer review could be improved if stakeholders were more aware of variations in gatekeepers' (reviewers' and editors') ability to provide feedback about the content or the writing. Gatekeepers, academic literacy researchers, and wordface professionals (author's editors, medical writers and translators) could work together to discover the types of feedback authors find most useful. I offer suggestions to help editologists design better studies of peer review which could make the process an even stronger tool for manuscript improvement than it is now.
| S-EPMC2268697 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundGiven that training is integral to providing constructive peer feedback, we examined the impact of a regularly reinforced, structured peer assessment method on student-reported feedback abilities throughout a two-year preclinical Communication Skills course.MethodsThree consecutive 32-student medical school classes were introduced to the Observation-Reaction-Feedback method for providing verbal assessment during Year 1 Communication Skills orientation. In biweekly small-group sessions, students received worksheets reiterating the method and practiced giving verbal feedback to peers. Periodic questionnaires evaluated student perceptions of feedback delivery and the Observation-Reaction-Feedback method.ResultsBiweekly reinforcement of the Observation-Reaction-Feedback method encouraged its uptake, which correlated with reports of more constructive, specific feedback. Compared to non-users, students who used the method noted greater improvement in comfort with assessing peers in Year 1 and continued growth of feedback abilities in Year 2. Comfort with providing modifying feedback and verbal feedback increased over the two-year course, while comfort with providing reinforcing feedback and written feedback remained similarly high. Concurrently, student preference for feedback anonymity decreased.ConclusionsRegular reinforcement of a peer assessment framework can increase student usage of the method, which promotes the expansion of self-reported peer feedback skills over time. These findings support investigation of analogous strategies in other medical education settings.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-021-01242-w.
| S-EPMC8368272 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Peer feedback is essential in writing English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL). Traditionally, offline PF was more widely favored but nowadays online peer feedback (OPF) has become frequent in ESL/EFL learners' daily writing. This study is undertaken to probe into the gains of using OPF in ESL/EFL writing on the basis of 37 research articles published in core journals from 2012 till 2022. In order to accurately cover the previous researches, we capitalize on three methods to evaluate and analyze the data, i.e., database search, citation search and manual search. Results show that from the perspective of the ESL/EFL learners' gains, the OPF is basically divided into two categories (cognitive OPF and affective OPF), involving eight aspects in all: face-based strategies, revision-based comments, writing performance, learning environment, reflection/critical thinking/responsibility, writing emotion, motivation, and attitudes; and OPF can be well supported by a set of theories like Process-oriented Writing Theory, Collaborative Learning Theory, Interactionist Theory of L2 Acquisition and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. By comparison, the gains from OPF outperform those from offline PF in many dimensions (e.g., face-based strategies), despite some overlaps (e.g., the shift of the role) that were revealed in several investigations. Based on the past studies, we propose some pedagogical implications on OPF from ESL/EFL writing, including accenting the "student-centered" teaching strategy, providing students with OPF on the basis of incremental knowledge, adopting OPF regularly in ESL/EFL writing activities to shape personalities and outlooks and putting OPF into its full play with recourse to abundant internet-based vehicles. This review is desired to provide a guideline for both the peer feedback practice and the upcoming scholarly researches with respect to EFL/ESL writing.
| S-EPMC9645300 | biostudies-literature
Project description:CohViz is a feedback system that provides students with concept maps as feedback on the cohesion of their writing. Although previous studies demonstrated the effectiveness of CohViz, the accuracy of CohViz remains unclear. Thus, we conducted two comprehensive validation studies to assess the accuracy of CohViz in terms of its reliability and validity. In a reliability study, we compared the concept maps generated by CohViz with concept maps generated by four human expert raters based on a text corpus comprising students' explanatory texts (N = 100). Regarding the depiction of cohesion gaps, we obtained high accordance between the CohViz concept maps and the concept maps generated by the human expert raters. However, CohViz tended to overestimate the number of relations within the concept maps. In a validity study, we examined the validity of CohViz and compared central features of the CohViz concept maps with convergent linguistic features and divergent linguistic features based on a Wikipedia text corpus (N = 1020). We found medium to high agreement with the convergent cohesion features and low agreement with the divergent features. Together, these findings suggest that CohViz can be regarded as an accurate feedback system to provide feedback on the cohesion of students' writing.
| S-EPMC7323980 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Peer mentoring is a powerful pedagogical approach for supporting undergraduate medical students in their learning environment. However, it remains unclear what exactly peer mentoring is and whether and how undergraduate medical students use social media for peer-mentoring activities.We aimed at describing and exploring the Facebook use of undergraduate medical students during their first 2 years at a German medical school. The data should help medical educators to effectively integrate social media in formal mentoring programs for medical students.We developed a coding scheme for peer mentoring and conducted a mixed-methods study in order to explore Facebook groups of undergraduate medical students from a peer-mentoring perspective.All major peer-mentoring categories were identified in Facebook groups of medical students. The relevance of these Facebook groups was confirmed through triangulation with focus groups and descriptive statistics. Medical students made extensive use of Facebook and wrote a total of 11,853 posts and comments in the respective Facebook groups (n=2362 total group members). Posting peaks were identified at the beginning of semesters and before exam periods, reflecting the formal curriculum milestones.Peer mentoring is present in Facebook groups formed by undergraduate medical students who extensively use these groups to seek advice from peers on study-related issues and, in particular, exam preparation. These groups also seem to be effective in supporting responsive and large-scale peer-mentoring structures; formal mentoring programs might benefit from integrating social media into their activity portfolio.
| S-EPMC5041359 | biostudies-other
Project description:Writing strategies are needed to manage the complexity of writing tasks, especially at university, where writing tasks are for learning, professional, or scientific purposes and are highly demanding. The literature shows that many undergraduate students have defined, stable, writing strategies, although some lack proper strategic development and require explicit instruction in this regard. In both cases, adapting writing tasks to undergraduate students' preferences and instructing them effectively requires understanding their writing strategies, which will encourage optimal learning and writing proficiency. This is why valid, reliable, writing strategy assessment tools are essential. The present study focused on the validation of the Spanish Writing Strategies Questionnaire-Undergraduate Students (WSQ-SU), aimed at measuring undergraduate students' preferences for using different writing strategies. The sample comprised 978 Spanish undergraduates doing degrees in Infant, Primary or Social Education, Pedagogy and Psychology. The data from the questionnaire was explored by means of exploratory and confirmatory analysis, test-retest reliability to analyse temporal stability and convergent validity. Two factors, planning and revising, were identified through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, representing different writing strategies and supporting the original model. The results indicated adequate test-retest reliability and temporal stability. The results also showed the questionnaire's convergent validity; a direct, linear correlation between two factors and off-line planning and revising variables. Based on the results, the WSQ for undergraduate students-Spanish version has been shown to be a reliable and valid, scale that can be easily applied in the university context to explore undergraduate students' writing strategies.
| S-EPMC10690414 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundQuality improvement (QI) is an essential component of modern clinical practice. Front-line professionals offer valuable perspectives on areas for improvement and are motivated to deliver change. In the UK, all junior doctors are expected to participate in QI in order to advance to the next stage of their training. However, UK undergraduates receive no standardized training in QI methods. This is perpetuated within medical schools by a lack of teaching capacity and competing priorities, and may lead to tokenistic engagement with future QI projects.MethodsWe describe a near-peer teaching programme designed to introduce students to QI methods. This pilot study was conceived and delivered in full by junior doctors and used existing resources to ensure high quality teaching content. 111 fifth-year medical students from the University of Cambridge were taught in interactive, participative workshops that encourage them to develop their own QI change ideas and projects. Core topics included the model for improvement, driver diagrams, stakeholder engagement, measurement for improvement and analysing and presenting data. Students completed surveys before and immediately after this intervention to assess their understanding of and confidence in utilizing QI methods. Questionnaires were also completed by junior doctor tutors.ResultsAnalysis of questionnaires completed before and immediately after the intervention revealed statistically significant improvements in students' self-reported understanding of QI (p < 0.05) and confidence in applying techniques to their own work (p < 0.05). Students expressed a preference for QI teaching delivered by junior doctors, citing a relaxed learning environment and greater relevance to their stage of training. Tutors reported increased confidence in using QI techniques and a greater willingness to engage with QI in future.ConclusionsIn this single-centre study, near-peer teaching produced significant improvements in students' self-reported understanding of QI and confidence in applying QI methods. Near-peer teaching may constitute a sustainable means of teaching essential QI skills at undergraduate level. Future work must evaluate objective measures of student engagement with and competence in conducting QI.
| S-EPMC7183591 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundInterprofessional Education (IPE) is an educational approach that brings together students from different healthcare professions to foster collaborative learning and teamwork. Before integrating IPE into the curriculum of health preprofessional students, it is necessary to increase their readiness for IPE. Dentistry increasingly values interprofessional collaboration and teamwork for enhanced patient care and healthcare team competencies, an emphasis also echoed by recent dental education authorities. The aim of this quasi-experimental research was to assess the influence of Scenario Based Learning Peer Learning (SBPL) programme, which involved scenarios necessitating interprofessional communication, on the readiness for IPE among a cohort of undergraduate dental students studying within the framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).MethodsThis study investigates undergraduate dental students' readiness for IPE and the influence of SBPL programme on their readiness. Participants (n = 25) from 18 EHEA countries completed the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) before and after SBPL programme, held at the 70th European Dental Students' Association (EDSA) meeting. Data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test (p = 0.05).ResultsAfter the SBPT programme, there was a statistically significant increase (p < 0.05) in the mean of the total scale, teamwork and collaboration, roles and responsibilities and professional identity subscale. In general, SBPL programme showed a constructive effect on interprofessional readiness. Although there was no statistically significant increase only in items 9,12,18 of the 19 items of the RIPLS, there was an increase in the averages in all except item 12.ConclusionOur research emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives and IPE in the realm of dental education. Within the limits of this study, it showcases the efficacy of a brief half-day SBPL programme with interprofessional scenarios in enhancing participants' readiness. The programme notably enhanced dental students' readiness in grasping crucial aspects of IPE: teamwork and collaboration, professional identity, and roles and responsibilities. However, this study does not delve into the potential impact of a comprehensive, long-term curriculum integrating IPE principles. This gap underscores the need for further exploration into the sustained influence of IPE on the interprofessional skills of dental school graduates.
| S-EPMC10801947 | biostudies-literature