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SPARKPLUS -Collaborative Peer Learning Companion

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INTRODUCTION

In my ALTC Teaching Fellowship I have focused on assisting academics to adopt, design and implement collaborative learning-oriented assessments many of which have incorporated the innovative use of self and peer assessment.

My aim was to support academics to develop assessment tasks that encourage students to take more responsibility for their own learning, learn from their mistakes, explore their learning through peer conversations and to develop their professional attributes including judgement, reflection and critical evaluation.

My tool of choice when using self and peer assessment is SPARKPLUS. This is not only because I am the project leader, but that I genuinely believe that is the best tool available. In particular, to my knowledge it is the only tool that encourages academic honesty through its capacity to both detect suspected free riders, saboteurs and over raters and mitigate their impact on the self and peer assessment process.

This document has been produced to assist instructors in using SPARKPLUS in their classes. It focuses on providing supporting material including information to be included in assessment and subject guides. This document is not a user guide - that can be found at http://spark.uts.edu.au/

In addition to this document I encourage you to watch the video presentations series designed to assist academics to use SPARKPLUS to evaluate and provide feedback on an individual's contribution to a team task, activity or project (http://sparkplus.com.au/factors/).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Anne Gardner and Mark Freeman who provided feedback that assisted me in writing this document.


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5

Table of Contents

Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................................... 3 SPARKPLUS Instructions For Students ................................................................................................ 7

Self and Peer Assessment of Contribution to a Team Project ......................................................... 7 1 Changing Password ................................................................................................................... 8 2 Choosing the Subject and Task ................................................................................................. 9 3 View your team ......................................................................................................................... 9 4 Entering Self Assessments ...................................................................................................... 10 5 Entering Peer Assessments ..................................................................................................... 10 6 Post Assessment Period .......................................................................................................... 11

SPARKPLUS Instructions For Students .............................................................................................. 12 Benchmarking Judgement .............................................................................................................. 12

What to do First ......................................................................................................................... 12 1 Changing Password ................................................................................................................. 13 2 Entering Your Benchmarking Assessments ............................................................................ 14 3 Post Assessment Period .......................................................................................................... 15

Activating Spellchecker ..................................................................................................................... 16 Examples of Information to Include in Student Subject Guide ......................................................... 17

Self and Peer Assessment of Individual Contribution to a Team Project Using SPARKPLUS ....... 17 Making Your Assessments............................................................................................................. 18 Both factors for each student will be released to all group members. ........................................... 18 We do not recommend awarding marks for compliance ............................................................... 19 Objections ...................................................................................................................................... 20 Which SPA Formula Should I Choose .......................................................................................... 21 SAPA: Self Assessment to Peer Assessment Factor ...................................................................... 23 Understanding: Self Assessment to Peer Assessment (SAPA) Factor .......................................... 24

To exclude or not to exclude ...................................................................................................... 25 How to interpret individual radar diagrams ....................................................................................... 26 How to run feedback sessions ............................................................................................................ 27

Recommendations ...................................................................................................................... 28 Free riders, Over raters, Saboteurs and non-contributors .................................................................. 29

Free riders ...................................................................................................................................... 29 Over raters ...................................................................................................................................... 31

Impact of over raters on SPARKPLUS Factors ............................................................................ 32 Excluding over raters ................................................................................................................. 33

Saboteurs ........................................................................................................................................ 36 Understanding Saboteurs ............................................................................................................... 37 Non-Contributors ........................................................................................................................... 40

Non-Contributor Example.......................................................................................................... 40 Removing Non-contributors ...................................................................................................... 41

How to search the SPARKPLUS log .................................................................................................... 43 Selected References ........................................................................................................................... 45


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17

EXAMPLES OF INFORMATION TO INCLUDE IN STUDENT SUBJECT GUIDE

In this section are some examples of information that you may want to include in your subject and or assessment outline.

Self and Peer Assessment of Individual Contribution to a Team Project Using SPARKPLUS

SPARKPLUS is an online tool that will be used to Self and Peer Assessment and provide feedback on your and your group members’ contribution to the group project.

Based on the ratings of each group member against criteria SPARKPLUS automatically produces two weighting factors.

The SPA or Self and Peer Assessment factor is an individual performance factor that measures how the group overall viewed the individual contribution of each team member.

SPA factor is proportional to members teamallfor ratings totalof Average

member teamindividualfor ratings Total

This SPA factor will be used to change your group project mark into an individual mark.

Individual mark = group mark * Individual’s SPA

For example, if a group receives 80/100 for their project and a student in that group receives a SPA factor of 0.9 for their contribution (reflecting a lower than average team contribution), the student will receive an individual mark of 72.

Individual mark = 80 * 0.9

= 72

The maximum mark an individual can achieve will be capped at 100% reflecting the maximum available mark for demonstrating the learning outcome achievement. For example, if a group receives 98/100 for their project and a student in that group receives a SPA factor of 1.05 for their contribution (reflecting a higher than average team contribution), the student will receive an individual mark of 100.

Individual mark = 98 * 1.05

= 103 capped at 100.

The second factor calculated is the SAPA factor. This is the ratio of a student’s own self assessment rating compared to the average rating of their contribution by their peers. Hence, it provides a comparison of the team’s and an individual’s assessment of their performance.

The SAPA factor provides students with feedback about how the rest of the group perceives their contribution. For example, a SAPA factor greater than 1 means that a student has rated their own performance higher than they were rated on average by their peers. Conversely, a SAPA factor less than 1 means that a student has rated their own performance lower than they were rated on average by their peers.

Typically, SAPA factors between 0.95 and 1.05 (your assessment is within approximately 10% of your peers) reflect that your assessment of your contribution is roughly in agreement with the average assessment of your contribution by your team.

SAPA factors above 1.1 reflect that you believe you contributed more (> 120%) to the team activity

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19

We do not recommend awarding marks for compliance There is a regular tendency to include compliance measures to encourage students to engage with

and/or complete their self and peer assessment activities. For example one academic commented, “if I didn't give students marks for completing SPARKPLUSthen no one would complete the exercise”.

I do not recommend awarding marks to students for activities that do not demonstrate your subject’s learning outcome achievement.

See the work of Roy Sadler including: D. R. Sadler, "Fidelity as a precondition for integrity in grading academic achievement," Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 35, pp. 727-743, 2012/04/15.

Rather I recommend instructors focus on developing a high-quality learning opportunity and design associated scaffolding aimed at moving students towards approaching this activity with a learning focus. Scaffolding measures could be described as being persuasive rather than punitive in that there is no summative penalty for non-compliance.

I also recommend for all assessment activities (both summative and formative) including the use of SPARKPLUS that academics should explain to students:

1) why they designed the assessment activity the way they did.

2) what learning opportunities the activity provides the students

3) how students can evaluate their learning from the activity

4) how it is going to impact on their reality (enable them to see the world differently)

K. Willey and A. Gardner, ‘Collaborative Learning Frameworks to Promote a Positive Learning Culture’ 2012 Frontiers in Education Conference, Soaring to New Heights in Engineering Education Seattle, Washington, 2012.

I do however acknowledge that it may take time to develop clearly articulated scaffolding aimed at changing students’ learning culture and many academics on first using SPARKPLUS include some form of compliance measure to promote participation. If this is the case I recommend that marks are at least deducted, rather than awarded for completing SPARKPLUS assessments.

For example the following is an extract from a subject guide:

The development of your feedback skills and judgement through completing the SPARKPLUS

assessments and participating in the associated feedback sessions is an assessable part of your project. As such if you fail to complete these assessment tasks you cannot be awarded the associated marks. The deduction for not completing these assessment tasks for each part of the project are listed below.

Please note to receive credit for this assessment you must demonstrate that you have met the learning outcomes (satisfied the assessment task). This means any person who submits dishonest or invalid assessments e.g. rating above average for every team member on any given criterion, will be regarded as not having satisfactorily completed the assessment (and hence receive no marks for the self and peer assessment exercise).

The activities are being designed to develop your critical evaluation, feedback and group work skills. These are important graduate attributes and indeed attributes required by most professional associations to obtain certification. Submitting invalid assessments not only undermines this process but deprives you of the opportunity to develop and practice these skills.

Fail to complete or submit dishonest or invalid self and

peer assessments via SPARKPLUS

Fail to participate in feedback sessions

Penalty 10% of the available project component mark.

Penalty 10% of the available project component mark.


20

Objections Initially the released SPA and SAPA factors will be preliminary, only becoming official after any objections are considered. Any student believing their SPARKPLUS assessments are unfair may lodge an objection. Any objection to your self and peer assessment ratings must be made in writing. Each objection must be no more than 400 words (12 point Times New Roman) clearly outlining why you believe your rating is unfair. Your objections will be discussed with the other members of your group. Objections must be lodged within 3 days from the date that the SPARKPLUS assessments are released.

An objection usually indicates that at least one member of a group has not achieved the teamwork learning objectives. Marks are only awarded for successfully achieving learning outcomes. The lodgement of an objection will be considered as a request for reassessment of the entire group. Hence, if a student lodges an objection the marks for the entire group will be reassessed and released after the objection has been considered. In considering any objection the log books, meeting minutes for a group and or other appropriate evidence will be reviewed.

If the objection is found to be warranted any students considered to have provided unfair assessments will be excluded from the group’s self and peer assessment calculation or alternatively the group’s SPA factors will be altered at the discretion of the subject coordinator.


21

Which SPA Formula Should I Choose

Relationship between SPA factor calculation methods (Note: the Knee plot has been slightly offset to increase readability).

SPARKPLUS allows the use of different formulas to accommodate the design of assessment tasks with different objectives. For example the above figure shows the relationship between the three formulas known as Original, Knee and Linear to calculate the SPA factor. Original

members teamallfor ratings totalof Average

member teamindividualfor ratings Total Factor SPA

Knee


member teamindividualfor ratings Total 1 ifFactor SPA


member teamindividualfor ratings Total 1 ifFactor SPA

Linear


member teamindividualfor ratings Total Factor SPA

While the selection of the most appropriate SPA formula will depend on the design of the assessment task and your desired learning outcomes, many users report the knee formula provided them with the most desirable option, combining the best features of the original and linear calculation methods. The knee formula also helps promote teamwork and fair division of the assessment task between team members by not rewarding students who might be tempted to take more than their fair share of work.

By way of explanation consider the following example. The table below shows the SPA factors for a team of four students for two scenarios:

Student A contributes only half the work of their team peers.

and

Student A contributes twice as much work as their team peers.

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Individual's Assessment / Average of all Team Members Assessment

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Knee

Original


22

The knee formula does not overly reward students who might be tempted to take on most of the work ( the table shows a student who did twice as much work as their peers would only get a SPA factor of 1.26) while providing incentive for those who are tempted to underperform (the table shows a student who only did half the work of their peers would get a SPA factor of 0.57).

SPA factors using different formulae for groups with one over or under performing team member.

Assessor Rating Student

A

Rating Student

B

Rating Student

C

Rating Student

D

SPA Original

SPA Knee

SPA Linear

Student A Contribution Half that of other Team Peer's Student A 1 1 1 1 0.76 0.57 0.57 Student B, C & D 2 2 2 2 1.07 1.07 1.14 Student A Contribution Twice that of other Team Peer's Student A 2 2 2 2 1.26 1.26 1.60 Student B, C & D 1 1 1 1 0.89 0.80 0.80

Students have also reported that they liked the knee formula as it provided a fairer distribution of marks and sent a stronger feedback message to underperforming students than with the factors calculated using the original formula. Some students had previously expressed concern that, using the original formula, underperforming students received an inflated mark that they were satisfied with, and hence were not motivated to improve their performance for the remaining parts of a project (Willey & Freeman, 2006). For example, the table shows using the original formula a student who only did half as much work as their team peers would get an SPA factor of 0.76 and hence receive 76% of the group mark. Using the knee formula this student’s mark would be reduced to 57% of the group mark, a figure that more closely reflects their true contribution.


23

SAPA: Self Assessment to Peer Assessment Factor

The SAPA factor is the ratio of a student’s own self assessment rating compared to the average rating of their contribution by their peers.

The SAPA factor provides students with feedback about how the rest of the group perceives their contribution. For example, a SAPA factor greater than 1 means that a student has rated their own performance higher than they were rated on average by their peers. Conversely, a SAPA factor less than 1 means that a student has rated their own performance lower than they were rated on average by their peers.

Typically, SAPA factors between 0.95 and 1.05 (your assessment is within approximately 10% of your peers) reflect that your assessment of your contribution is roughly in agreement with the average assessment of your contribution by your team.

SAPA factors above 1.1 reflect that you believe you contributed more (> 120%) to the team activity than on average your team peers believe you contributed. Conversely, SAPA factors below 0.9 reflect that your team on average believes you contributed more (< 80%) to the team activity than you believe you did.

The following table shows the relationship between different SAPA factors and the difference between a student's perception of their contribution compared to the average perception of their contribution by their team peers.

SAPA Factor 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

Percentage of your self rating to

average peer rating of your

contribution

25% 36% 49% 64% 81% 100% 121% 144% 169% 196% 225%

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26

HOW TO INTERPRET INDIVIDUAL RADAR DIAGRAMS

Self ratingAvg Peer rating

Feedback from Peers

The blue envelope in the radar diagrams represents the SAPA factors. When this envelope exceeds 1 this indicates that students believe their contribution was higher than the average rating they received from their team peers. The red envelope represents the SPA factors. When this envelope exceeds 1 it indicates the perception that students have contributed more than the average of their team peers. The radar diagram shown above has broken a student’s performance down into three attribute categories. A quick look at the diagram shows that in the Engineering Ability category the student contributed the same as the average contribution of their team and the student's rating of their own performance agrees with the average rating they received from their team peers. Conversely in the Knowledge Base and Professional Skills categories the student performed slightly below the average contribution of their team and the SAPA envelope shows they rated their own performance much higher than they were rated by their team peers. The differences between a student’s assessment of their contribution compared to their peers’ assessment may be due to a number of factors including:

Their contribution has not been fairly assessed by their peers. Their peers have not provided feedback to the student in regard to their performance and

hence they are unaware of the differences between their self and their team peers’ perceptions.

The student may be aware of their true performance level but deliberately chose to inflate their ratings in an attempt to increase their overall mark.

If your reastudents’ jusuggest yothese sessiowhere the cconducted

Students hastage of a t

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28

allows students to acknowledge what they have not done well before this is pointed out by their peers)

3. Students then provide constructive criticism to their team peers by:

suggesting how they may have approached their tasks differently to achieve a better group result

suggesting how aspects of their behaviour affected the team and the benefits of changing that behaviour

reflecting on how team peers could have learnt more from the process.

4. The in-class discussion concludes by teams agreeing how to improve their overall team and individual performance for the remaining parts of the project and /or in future group work opportunities.

During the feedback session the lecturer/tutor should move between groups asking questions to prompt discussions between team members. For example, the above group radar diagram shows Rick and Lavier rated their own contribution higher than their peers (on average) rated their contribution. While both appear to have contributed reasonably to the project (SPA factors close to 1) we would ask them to reflect on these results and suggest why this discrepancy occurred. Similarly, Rachel has not only underrated her performance (low SAPA factor) but also contributed the least to the project (lowest SPA factor). We would ask Rachel to reflect on her results. For example was she feeling guilty or just being modest and how she intends to improve her performance for the remaining stages of the project and in future group work opportunities.

Recommendations

1. Hand out the group radar diagrams and conduct the feedback sessions before students receive their mark/grade for that stage of the project. If you hand out the grades first students are often distracted and fail to benefit from the feedback sessions. Remember these feedback sessions are designed to help students build their professional skills including teamwork, critical evaluation and the ability to both give and receive feedback.

2. After the feedback sessions hand back to students feedback on their project stage submission. Only after you have discussed the feedback with each team should you provide their grades. In our experience if you have provided quality feedback with which students have engaged then they will be able to accurately predict their grade before you even hand it out. If you hand out the grades first, students are less likely to focus on the feedback they receive but rather start comparing their grades to other groups to decide whether their grade was fair and if not how they can argue for additional marks.

3. Design group projects to have multiple stages to enable students to receive feedback and act on it within the subject. For example, we use SPARKPLUS at least twice in a group project to assess individual's contribution. For example, the first deliverable may be worth 10 to 15 marks and the second 25 to 30 marks. This not only provides an opportunity for students to act on the feedback they received to improve their performance in later stages of the subject, but by allocating a higher weight (more marks) to later stages of the projects provide incentive to students to respond to this feedback to improve their grade.

4. We recommend that the final project deliverables are due in the second last week of semester. This allows the feedback activities to be held in the last teaching week. As previously mentioned we have found that sharing SPARKPLUS factors with all team members and having teams discuss the results promotes academic honesty (students providing fair and honest assessment). We have found that some students knowing they will not be seeing each other that semester and hence will not be accountable to the group for their ratings, tend to over rate their performance in an effort to improve their grade.

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36

Saboteurs

Saboteurs are students who deliberately provide dishonest assessments. There is no one method for detecting saboteurs (as it varies depending on the type of assessment task, the formula chosen by the instructor (original, knee or linear) etc).

Saboteurs can usually be categorised as one of the following:

Students who do not contribute their fair share to the project but rate themselves high and their team peers low in an attempt to improve their mark or hide their poor contribution. Saboteurs in this category typically have an SPA (performance) factor less than 0.85 and a SAPA (feedback) factor greater than 1.5.

Students who contribute their fair share to the project but over rate their own performance relative to their team peers. Saboteurs in this category may have an SPA (performance) factor close to and in some cases higher than 1 and a SAPA (feedback) factor greater than 1.1.

Students who have a problem with or do not like a particular team member, or team members, and rate them unfairly low. Saboteurs in this category are harder to identify. Most often their SPA (performance) factor is less than 1 and their SAPA (feedback) factor is greater than 1, while the peers they have rated unfairly have SPA factors close to one and SAPA factors greater than 1. Saboteurs that fit this category are most easily identified by looking at the average ratings provided by students (available in the results screen) to identify inconsistencies in how students were rated by the peers. If you suspect a student of being a saboteur the next step is to exclude them from the factor calculation and observe how the group’s factors change.

A high SAPA factor does not necessarily mean that a student has deliberately overrated their own performance. For example:

they may be a student who rated everybody high (see section on over raters)

or

they may be a student who has not been informed by their team peers that their performance was not satisfactory and hence they honestly believe their contribution was the same as their peers.

When identifying saboteurs remember you are looking for a student who has overrated their own performance relative to their team peers.

Once you have sufficient experience we recommend you automatically exclude suspected saboteurs (once excluded their ratings will not be used in the calculation of any marks or factors (SPA, SAPA) and allow them the right to appeal your decision (see section on Objections).

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SELECTED REFERENCES

Willey, K. & Gardner A (2010) "Investigating the capacity of self and peer assessment activities to engage students and promote learning." European Journal of Engineering Education 35(4): 429 - 443.

Willey K & Gardner A (2009) Improving self- and peer assessment processes with technology. Campus-Wide Information Systems Vol 26 (5) pp. 379 - 399 Emerald Group Publishing.

Willey K & Gardner A (2009) Developing team skills with self- and peer assessment: Are benefits inversely related to team function? Campus-Wide Information Systems Vol 26 (5) pp. 365 - 378 Emerald Group Publishing.

Willey K, & Freeman M. (2006), “Improving teamwork and engagement: the case for self and peer assessment”, Australasian Journal of Engineering Education. Online publication 2006-02 http://www.aaee.com.au/journal/2006/willey0106.pdf


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