The effect of peer critique groups on students' critiquing and writing ability

Georgina Barcelow-Hill, Purdue University

Abstract

Research attempting to validate peer response groups as an effective pedagogy for composition has produced conflicting results. In some studies, peer response groups appear to enhance writing performance; in others they do not. Other research on the effectiveness of peer response groups has been the analysis of the talk or written suggestions peer groups generate. Some of this research has found that students attended to the task at hand and offered helpful suggestions to their peers: others found the students wandered off the task an did not offer appropriate suggestions. Generally, a major assumption underlying peer response group research is that these groups are a useful pedagogy because the groups provide developing writers with helpful, varied feedback. However, if, as some research has shown, students do not consistently provide beneficial feedback, then the legitimacy of peer response groups must be questioned. This study shifts from the traditional investigations of how peer responses affect the recipient/writer to how critiquing--analyzing and evaluating student writing--affects the responder/writer. Specifically, this study argues that peer critiquing provides a workshop where students can develop criteria and strategies for detecting and diagnosing writing problems--skills necessary for revision. Peer critiquing should most directly affect the quantity of problems students can detect and the quality of the diagnosis of those problems. Therefore, students may become better writers because of increased ability to detect and diagnose problems in texts. To test this assumption, 89 university students were randomly assigned to treatment or control sections of freshman composition. The experimental group worked in peer critique groups prior to submitting essays for teacher evaluation. At the end of the term, critiquing and writing performance were analyzed for both groups. Students in the treatment group wrote more diagnostic comments and more qualitatively sophisticated comments on a peer critique task. However, there was no difference between groups in performance on the self task or in performance on a writing sample.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Lauer, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Language arts|Educational sociology

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