Peer-Assessment Enhanced Collaborative Learning in a Virtual Learning Environment

This research investigated the perceptions of a group of students in a university in Hong Kong concerning peer assessment enhanced collaborative learning in a virtual learning environment. A total of 31 Chinese learners of English participated in the project and conducted online collaborative learning and peer assessment in Moodle, ZOOM, and Flipgrid. They were interviewed afterwards and reported their perceptions of the learning process, the challenges that they encountered, and the strategies that they applied to overcome the challenges. The results showed that the students' perceptions of this approach to teaching and learning were overall positive. Concerning the main challenges, the students indicated that when they received massive amounts of feedback, they felt overwhelmed and did not know where to start for further improvement. They also found that peer suggestions were inconsistent sometimes, and when they received similar critical feedback repeatedly, they felt frustrated. To overcome these challenges, the students reported that they managed to prioritize the areas that they need to improve and started with the most important ones. They also asked follow-up questions concerning the controversial suggestions to figure out why their peers' suggestions were different and discussed within groups to decide which suggestions to follow. Moreover, they attempted to focus more on providing constructive feedback, rather than critical feedback. These results suggested that peer assessment enhanced collaborative online learning was an effective approach to active learning.