A Comparison of Peer Review Techniques in Computing Education

Abstract

Peer Review is widespread across a range of academic disciplines. This research compared two different approaches of peer reviewing program code in the discipline of Computing Education – Sequential Peer Review and Parallel Peer Review. The former involves reviewing multiple programs in a sequential manner. The latter involves reviewing multiple programs simultaneously. This research helped ascertain the peer review approach that was perceived as easier by students. It also evaluated the differences in the formative feedback generated from the two approaches. Another outcome of this research was the development of a web prototype that supported Parallel Peer Review. Formative feedback obtained from peer reviews has been cited by education literature to be beneficial to students and educators. However, there are no studies in Computing Education literature that compare formative feedback obtained from different peer review approaches. Further, no electronic interface that supports Parallel Peer Review of programming code exists in Computing Education literature. This research found that students perceived Parallel Peer Review to be easier. However, the formative feedback was found to have more written words in Sequential Peer Review. Further analysis also found that students generally identified more aspects related to code with respect to Sequential Peer Review. An informal usability test of the electronic prototype developed during this research revealed a positive outlook of the interface that supported Parallel Peer Review. As this research thesis presented the first substantial study of the Parallel Peer Review approach in Computing Education, it establishes avenues for future exploration of this approach.