Abstract

This article addresses concerns surrounding the implementation of peer assessment (PA) in higher education institutions, including issues related to students’ learning histories, long-established assessment practices, students’ competency in grading their peers, and the reliability of PA outputs. The study focuses on three English Language Teaching (ELT) courses, employing both quantitative and qualitative action research approaches to gather insights from teachers’ and students’ perspectives. Through classroom observations, student surveys, and teacher accounts, the research highlights the opportunities, challenges, and limitations of PA implementation. The study investigates the reliability of students’ grades and the quality of their feedback compared to teachers’ assessments when PA is used as a substitutional or supplementary tool. Findings indicate that PA can be as reliable as teacher assessments when certain conditions are met, including clear communication of assessment criteria and rubrics, providing a model of good assessment, offering sufficient training, and allocating appropriate weight to the assessment task. Moreover, implementing PA assists the development of reflective practitioners among students. However, the study also reveals that using PA as a one-off assessment tool in a course of study and the negative stigmas associated with “peer assessment” can limit its impact on learning.