Peer—Evaluating Oral Presentationfor the Purpose of Developing Critical Thinking

【Abstract】In China， it has been noticed that college students of English major are quite weak in critical thinking skills. To improve them， the author applied a threestage peerevaluation approach to oral presentation teaching. With data and evidence collected， the author reveals her findings and proposes how peer evaluation could be used.

【Key word】PeerEvaluating；Critical Thinking

1 Purpose of the Study

In 2001 in China， a national project， named “The Influence of Joining WTO on Foreign Languages Teaching at Tertiary Level”， revealed that students of English major are generally weaker than students of other majors in the aspect of logic （Wen， 1999； Wen & Liu， 2006）. As an attempt to solve the problem， the author decided to adopt the means of peer evaluation for the purpose of improving critical thinking.

2 Rationale for the Experiment

Critical Thinking is defined by Ennis （1987） as reflective reasoning about beliefs and actions. It helps to make careful analyses and judgments， to distinguish between truth and falsehood， to discover and weigh advantages and disadvantages

Peer Evaluation， sometimes known as Peer Assessment， in EFL/ESL teaching， refers to the assessment of learners’ performance done by peer learners in contrast to the assessment done by themselves or by teachers. It has been unanimously accepted that peer assessment can play a very position role in EFL/ESL teaching and learning （Topping， 1998； Davies， 2006； Patri， 2002； Brown， 2004； Cheng and Warren， 2005）. The advantages of peer evaluation from the perspective of learners can be summarized as follows：

（1）Developing critical thinking， communication， lifelong learning， and collaborative skills（Nilson， 2003）；

（2）Facilitating high order thinking （Topping， 1998； Oliver & Omari， 1999； Cheng & Warren， 2005； Nilson， 2003）；

（3）Encouraging involvement， responsibility of learners， thus leading to high autonomy（Orsmond & Merry， 1996； Sivan， 2000）。

So with all the advantages， the author considers the means of peer assessment would be very much suitable for the purpose of the experiment

3 Subjects of the Experiment

50 junior students of English major from 2 classes of the English department where the author works attended the experiment. They were all students of the author. Formative evaluation was adopted for evaluating the achievement of the experiment

4 Design and Implementation of the Experiment

For their oral presentations， all the students were required to provide a clear viewpoint by supporting or opposing an idea. As to the criteria used for the presentations， the author tried to embody the critical thinking skills summarized in the following：

（1）Interpretation： categorization， decoding significance， clarifying meaning；

（2）Analysis： examining ideas， identifying arguments， analyzing arguments；

（3）Evaluation： assessing claims， assessing arguments；

（4）Inference： querying evidence，conjecturing alternatives，drawing conclusions；

（5）Explanation： stating results，justifying procedures， presenting arguments；

Then peer evaluation was carried out through 3 stages over the period of 2 semesters（that was approximately 8 months）. The author required every student to do a presentation lasting at least 4 minutes and no more than 5 minutes with good arguments and a clear viewpoint. She applied the following 3 stages：

（1） Preparation Stage（2 months）

This stage could also be called training stage where the teacher would introduce the first version of the criterion to be used. Students were divided into groups and group leaders were selected. The criterion was carefully explained and trial evaluation rounds were carried out

（2） Tuning Stage（4 months）

The adjustment majorly focused on 2 aspects – criterion items and score distribution. The process of the adjustment was summarized as follow：

（3） Speedup Stage（2 months）

The speedup stage began when the teacher and students thought that there was no need to make any alteration on the criteria used. And during this stage， the focus was on the appropriateness of a topic， the quality of general statement， claims and arguments

5 Collecting Data

Following the procedures mentioned above， there were rounds of modification of the criteria used. One class went through changes of 6 versions and the other class 9 versions. Additionally， 15 journals were collected. At the end of the second semester， a questionnaire survey about the students’ general viewpoint of peer evaluation was conducted

6 Findings

6.1 Students’involvement in class had been enhanced and their responsibility was reinforced

According to the questionnaire survey， 89%（41 students） of the students thought that they were more attentive to their classmates’ oral presentations in this class than in other classes. Whether a presentation was good or bad， all the peer raters would be attentive for the reason that they had to grade the presenter and had to make specific comments. At the preparation stage， the students wrote very short comments， and usually the comments were quite general. But later on， their comments were more specific， and their reports got longer

The students seemed to have been involved more thoroughly in the evaluation process. They spent more time discussing in class on problems of whether the arguments were logical and weak or strong. Their layout of the measurement items in their criteria got more complicated

Totally， 15 journals had been handed in. They were all very positive. One student said in her journal， “…in the past， I just followed my bent to do whatever I like for most of my oral presentations assigned； while this time， I felt that I have been enlightened all of a sudden， and as to logic， I think my classmates’comments are very objective and very much beneficial….”

6.2 Students’critical thinking skills had been improved

98% of the students believed that they understood what a wellstructured and logical presentation with a distinctive viewpoint was like. 87% of the students thought that the alterations made on the criteria were found to have helped them gradually understand argumentation with depth.

Hence， the author infers that the critical thinking skills， after one school year of training this way， had been improved.

7 Frustration and limitation

Coming together with the success was also the frustration， which also reflects the limitation of this study

Peer assessment requires teacher to give students proper training （Freeman， 1995；Patri，2002）.However，the training was very timeconsuming and demanding，for quality peer assessment requires teachers to have proper preparation and good monitoring（Chen & Warren，2005）.This was considered the prime disadvantage of this approach by Brown（2004）.The author agrees on this point.Managing the grouping of the students and collecting the students’reports，providing feedbacks of the students’evaluation reports and summarizing typical problems and finding good examples for peer raters to follow was extremely timeconsuming.The author had 50 students as subjects. So she went through 100 copies of reports of the students and made 100 copies of teacher reports. Those constituted a heavy pile of work

8 Implication for Teaching

The author would like to put forward some suggestions for oral presentation teaching if peer evaluation is adopted and if critical thinking skills are also a purpose. They are as follow：

（1）The measurement items in peer evaluation form should be specific. A teacher’s job is to make intangible evaluation concepts tangible for students. If the items are too general， then most likely the understanding of standards of good performance of the students would not go beneath the surface and thus be useful

（2）It is very critical to provide timely feedback both in class and to the peer evaluation to make sure the understanding of the criteria used for grading. To help students to follow the rules established， the teacher should always help the students assess the performance in class.

（3）Small size of a class is preferable in adopting this method to downsize the work load of the teacher to ensure high quality of the assessment

9 Conclusion

The author believes that this experiment can provide a clue for teachers who want to solve similar problems and who， after seeing the combination in this study， will optimize the advantages and weaken the disadvantages， and put all the methods into good use

References：

[1]Brown， Douglas. Language assessment： Principles and classroom practice. New York： Longman，2004

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[3]Davies， Phil. Peer assessment： Judging the quality of students’ work by comments rather than marks. Innovations in Education and Teaching International， 2006，43（1）， 6982

[4]Ennis， Robert. A Taxonomy of Critical Thinking Skills and Dispositions. In J. B. Baron and R. J. Sternberg （Eds.）， Teaching Thinking Skills： Theory and Practice （pp. 926）. New York： Freeman，1987

[5]Freeman， Mark. Peer assessment by groups of group work. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education， 1995，20（3）， 289–300

[6]Orsmond， Paul & Merry， Stephen. The importance of marking criteria in the use of peer assessment. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education， 1996，21（3）， 239–250

[7]Patri， Mrudula. The influence of peer feedback on self and peerassessment of oral skills. Language Testing， 2002，19（2）， 109–131

[8]Sivan， Atara. The implementation of peer assessment： An action research approach. Assessment in Education： Principles， Policy & Practice， 2000，7（2）， 193–213

[9]Topping， Keith. Peer assessment between students in colleges and universities. Review of Educational Research， 1998， 68（3）， 249–276

[10]Wen， Qiufang. Oral Language Teaching and Cultivation of Critical Thinking. Foreign Language Teaching， 1999， （2）， 14

[11]Wen，Qiufang， & Liu， Runqing. Features of Abstract Thinking of Chinese College Students Based on the Analysis of Their English Writing of Argumentation. Journal of Foreign Languages， 2006，（2）， 5160

基金项目：

提高英语专业学生思辨能力行动研究（天津师范大学教育科学研究基金项目）。