This project examined how peer feedback influences interdisciplinary learning in a Liberal Arts and Sciences course. Students gave peer feedback on each other’s disciplinary writing, either online or face-to-face. Survey results indicated that the opportunity to discuss feedback with peers was highly valued by students, and that students were less satisfied with the learning outcomes from online peer feedback. 

Background information

Students collaborated in multi-disciplinary teams to answer an interdisciplinary research question, using the interdisciplinary research process from Repko & Szostak (2020) containing three phases. In phase A, students define the interdisciplinary research question. In phase B, students do their interdisciplinary research and in phase C, students integrate their disciplinary insights. Especially the phases A and C require intensive collaboration.

Project description 

This project was carried out during an interdisciplinary research course for second year Liberal Arts and Sciences bachelor students at Utrecht University. First, the students wrote a disciplinary perspective on the interdisciplinary research question. Then, peer feedback was implemented to allow students to learn from each other on their disciplinary writing. Peer feedback was arranged in a way that students from a similar disciplinary specialization provided feedback to each other’s contributions. In two of the three seminar groups, students provided online peer feedback through the tool Feedback Fruits 2.0. In the third seminar group, the students provided face-to-face feedback. Eventually, all students responded to a survey with questions regarding their interdisciplinary learning, their perception of the feedback itself and the advantages/disadvantages of online or face-to-face peer feedback.

Aims

While it is known that peer feedback is effective for academic writing, it is unknown if interdisciplinary learning is also improved by peer feedback. Therefore, this project has the following objectives:

• Investigate how students perceive peer feedback regarding their disciplinary academic writing
• Investigate the effect of the feedback on the interdisciplinary learning
• Comparing online peer feedback with face-to-face feedback to investigate how peer feedback can best be implemented for interdisciplinary learning in the future

Results & Conclusion

While online peer feedback has advantages considering logistics and organization of teaching, less students were satisfied with its impact on their (interdisciplinary) learning. For instance, results showed that the students did not give high ratings to their disciplinary learning, especially when they engaged in online peer feedback. The students mainly valued the opportunity to discuss and interact with their peers during feedback exchanges. Since students also appreciate the flexibility of online peer feedback, it is worthwhile exploring how to improve interaction in online peer feedback sessions. 

References

• Huisman, B., Saab, N., van den Broek, P., & van Driel, J. (2019). The impact of formative peer feedback on higher education students’ academic writing: a Meta-Analysis. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(6), 863–880.
• Van der Pol, J., Van den Berg, B. A. M., Admiraal, W. F., & Simons, P. R. J. (2008). The nature, reception, and use of online peer feedback in higher education. Computers & Education, 51(4), 1804–1817.
• Repko, A. and Szostak, R. (2020). Inter­disciplinary Research: Process and Theory. Sage.