Evaluating short-term and long-term peer assessment of student teamwork

The lack of individual reward for individual effort is a major concern for many university film and video students undertaking group-based projects. Peer assessment is often used to derive individual marks from group projects, and because it goes some way towards mimicking professional practice. However, if there is only one group project that is part of a subject's assessable work, any mismatch of students, in terms of skiffs, commitment and personality, can result in some students receiving an undeservedly harsh assessment from their peers, which can affect their final grade, Long-term peer assessment, where students undertake several small group projects in a semester, each with a different set of students, has been shown to be a useful instrument for deriving a more moderated peer assessment mark, not least because it acts to counteract the potential pitfalls of mismatched students.