SEFI Podcast Season 7 Episode 8 – Publication Spotlight Series: SEFI 2025 Best Practice Paper: Using multistage peer reviews to provide feedback and improve student learning

Feedback and peer review is a key part of university life for both educators and students. Despite this, there are still gaps in our understanding how to best provide and make use of feedback. This episode features Ruth Fisher and Divya Naya, both from the University of New South Wales. We talk about the winner of the ‘Best Practice Paper’ at the SEFI 2025 Conference entitled “Using multistage peer reviews to provide feedback and improve student learning” which Ruth and Divya co-authored with Javier Videlo Mario and Shamim Aryampa.

How did the work come about?

Ruth explains that they had been interested in peer review and had been trialling various activities and classes over the past five years, and that the idea behind the paper emerged during discussions with colleagues with similar interests who were all teaching different courses.

Divya describes how the work, in part, was motivated by the ongoing challenges of providing detailed, timely and individualized feedback to every student in large engineering classes.

A summary of the work

Ruth explains that the paper explores meta-review tasks, whereby each student first completes a peer review, and then reviews the feedback they have received, finishing with a reflection and correction stage. This was done in four different engineering courses, and they conducted thematic analysis of the feedback itself and obtained student perceptions via surveys and teacher reflections.

The rationale

Divya explains that peer feedback offers a very scalable solution to the provision of feedback and that previous research has shown that it can be just as effective as instructor feedback in helping students improve their understanding. There is also strong educational value in the process of conducting peer assessment itself, as when students review someone else’s work they often re-evaluate their own thinking, thereby promoting critical reflection, problem solving, and deeper learning.

However, effective peer review requires training, as students often lack a clear understanding of evaluation criteria, leading to superficial or unconstructive feedback. This gap requires a more targeted process in which critical thinking, reviewing, and providing feedback are directly practiced through structured reflection on feedback quality and effectiveness.

What was involved?

Ruth explains that the peer review process was integrated into four different courses (including undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts in different disciplinary areas of transport, environmental and civil engineering) run by three different educators. The assignments in each course varied, including a video presentation, a site visit, and a technical report.

The process involved the use of the Moodle virtual learning environment (VLE) Workshop tool, which allowed students to upload their work and for it to be automatically distributed to other students, who then used rubrics to provide feedback and indicative grades. The final stage involved the meta-review, whereby the feedback was returned to the original author, who looked at the feedback that they received and then provided feedback on that feedback (for example, indicating whether it was constructive and useful).

How effective was this approach?

Divya outlines three research questions:

1.) How important was student expertise in providing useful feedback?
2.) How did students respond to the tone of feedback, and how did tone shape their perception of its usefulness?
3.) How effective was the overall process, based on students’ post-task reflections, particularly in terms of improving their understanding of assessment criteria and supporting their learning?

They describe the use of a mixed-method approach to capture both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the student experience. This involved (1) post-course surveys, which helped to understand whether the students felt the process was meaningful, useful, and aligned with their learning needs; (2) course artifacts, including the written peer feedback; and (3) teacher reflections.

Data also included the marks that students assigned during the first stage of peer review, and also those assigned during the second stage, the meta-feedback review. This data was used to test two key hypotheses: (1) whether the students marked differently when reviewing the same topic compared to a different topic, and (2) whether students who received higher marks on their own submissions subsequently gave higher ratings during the meta-feedback stage.

Findings

Ruth describes four key themes:

1.) Students emphasised the need for feedback to be clear, specific, and unambiguous.
2.) Students repeatedly valued feedback that offered practical and actionable steps for improvement.
3.) Students accepted that constructive criticism is useful but appreciated a balance of positive and critical comments.
4.) Students highlighted the importance of technical details, for example the inclusion of precise methodological detail that could be improved.

Focusing on the meta-feedback, students generally reported improved clarity regarding the assessment criteria and greater confidence in understanding assignment expectations.

In relation to the two hypotheses:

1.) Whether the students marked differently when reviewing the same topic compared to a different topic; they found no significant differences between peer review marks and feedback marks, regardless of whether students reviewed the same or a different topic.

2.) Whether the students who received higher marks on their submission subsequently gave higher ratings in the meta-feedback stage; the results varied across different courses, so there was no clear relationship.

Student perceptions

Divya explains that some students expressed concern about receiving feedback that was occasionally superficial, indicating inconsistencies in peer engagement, but the quantitative results nevertheless showed strong overall support for the peer feedback process.

Follow this link to read the full paper.