Peer Evaluation in the Political Science Classroom

When student presentations are offered in the classroom., instructors are most likely to be concerned about the extent to which students pay attention and learn from the experience of not only giving a presentation., but about what students learn, as an audience. After devising a peer-evaluation instrument for students to evaluate their classmates' presentations, over the course of two years and to courses, we surveyed students to determine the effectiveness and usefulness of peer evaluations. We found that students are more likely to pay attention, gain a different perspective on the presentation experience, and be more engaged in the presentation when they evaluate one another.