Using an online peer review and assessment tool in a large undergraduate business subject : analysing student behaviour and performance

Assessment has long been seen as an important part of the teaching process for academics as well as the learning process for students. One trend that has emerged in recent times is the use of group assessments and the involvement of students in these group assessments beyond merely producing the object on which they are to be assessed. The study outlined in this paper considers the introduction of a group assessment task into a large undergraduate business subject and the support of this assessment task through the use of an online peer review tool, viz. SPARKPLUS. Analysis of the data captured by SPARKPLUS found that once teething problems with using the tool were corrected there was: (a) a high level of engagement with the peer process although this level of engagement did diminish over the course of the semester; (b) a low level of social loafing although this activity did not diminish despite it been punished in terms of how the assessment marks were calculated; and (c) a moderate impact on the level of performance in the assessment based on different levels of engagement in the peer review process.