Poster Presentation
The Effect of Peer Review on Student
Summary Writing in EST Courses
Jie Shi
The National University of Electro-Communications
Yan YuTama University
Uma Maheswari Rajagopalan
Integrative Neural Systems Laboratory, RIKENIntroduction
In composition courses, especially when the process approach is used, peer
review is an activity done in the revising stage of writing in which students
receive feedback about their writing from other students – their peers. It is also
known as peer feedback or peer editing. Typically, students work in pairs or small
groups, read each other’s compositions and ask questions or give comments,scores or suggestions.
Peer review has been a rapidly growning activity in ESL/EFL writing classes
in the past two decades. Many studies have shown the peer review process to beeffective and to have many benefits for university students (Hansen & Liu, 2005;
Mangelsdorf, 1992; Mendonca & Johnson, 1994; Villamil & De Guerrero, 1996;
Hyland, 2000). For example, it helps them to gain a better perception of theprocess of writing and revising, enables them to develop their abilities to reflect
on their own writings and revisions (Min, 2003), and raises their awareness ofbecoming better writers themselves (Stoddard & MacArthur, 1993).
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The Effect of Peer Review, OnCUE Journal, 7(2), pages 130-138

The objective of this research is to demonstrate not only positive but also
negative effects of a peer review project as a teaching and learning strategy foracademic summary writing. This was done in multiple classes of an English for
Science and Technology (EST) course at a Japanese university of science andengineering (S&E).

Case Study
The students of this “Technical English” course are third-year students of theDepartment of Informatics. The English proficiency level of the students isclassified as intermediate. In Japan, university students, especially students ofS&E, start their graduation research under the supervision of their professors
in the fourth year. To familiarize the students with standard academic writingand eventually improve their integrated skills as independent researchers tomeet the needs of globalization, many S&E professors assign students to readresearch papers, to write abstracts, summaries and research papers, and todo presentations, all in English. With the goal of preparing students for theassignments mentioned above, the students enrolled in this class were asked tocomplete several tasks during the one-year course.
The students in this study consisted of students from the various scienceand engineering disciplines in the Technical English Course of UEC Tokyo. A
checklist was used for both peer and teacher evaluations. The overall procedureof the study is outlined in Figure 1.

Research Method
Ninety third-year students participated in this research. A checklist of 11questions (Figure 2) was designed for the students to offer their feedback on theirpeer summaries of a popular science article chosen by the teacher. The research
procedure is as follows. First, students write the first drafts of their summaries.
Second, students do pair work by reading each other`s summaries and finishing
the checklist. Third, the teacher provides all the students with handouts ofinstruction on how to write a good summary and of a sample summary. Fourth,
based on the content of the checklist, students are asked to revise their summaries
131ShiFigure 1. Flowchart of research procedure

Figure 2. Peer and teacher review checklist

to complete their second draft. Fifth, students review that draft from the samepeers using the same checklist. The final step is for the teacher to read the second
draft and complete the checklists for all the students.

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The Effect of Peer Review, OnCUE Journal, 7(2), pages 130-138
Table 1
Summary of Student Checklist 1A1A2A3

Q1

40

36

14Q2683

19Q364224

Q477

13NAQ554

19

17Q688

2NA

Q7

3141

18Q87956Q969219Q1070

911Q1163

27NAA1A2A3Q175

312Q28406Q378

111Q487

3NAQ571613Q6882NAQ760282Q88703Q975

213Q1082

35Q1187

3NA

Table 2
Summary of Student Checklist 2133

Shi
Table 3
Summary of Teacher Checklist
A1A2A350040

6802255035900

NA15174900NA88

206702312078

880

2900

NA

Answer (Yes)

Student Checklist 1

Student Checklist 2

Q14075

Q26884

Q36478Q47787

Q55471Q73160Q87987

Q96975

Q107082Q116387

Table 4Comparison of Student Checklists 1 & 2134

The Effect of Peer Review, OnCUE Journal, 7(2), pages 130-138
Table 5Comparison of Student Checklist 2 & Teacher Checklist
Answer (Yes)

Student Checklist 1

Student Checklist 2

Q14075

Q26884

Q36478Q477

87Q55471

Q73160Q87987

Q96975

Q107082

Q116387

Table 6Comparison of A2 of Student Checklist 2 and Teacher Checklist
A3

Student Checklist 2

Teacher’s checklist

Q1

1240

Q2622Q31135

Q51374

Q8323Q91378

Table 7Comparison of A3 of Student Checklist 2 and Teacher Checklist
A3

Student Checklist 2

Teacher’s checklist

Q1

1240

Q2

622Q3

1135

Q51374

Q8323Q91378

135

ShiResults
Tables 1, 2, and 3 summarize the results of students’ first and second checklists
and the teacher’s checklist, respectively.
Tables 4, 5, 6, and 7 are the comparisons of results between students’checklists and students’ checklists with teacher’s checklist.
Figures 3 and 4 show the results of Answer-choice 1 (A1), Answer-choice 2(A2), Answer-choice 3 (A3) of students’ peer reviews in Checklists 1 and 2.

Figure 3. Summary of A1, A2 & A3 of Student Checklist 1

Figure 4. Summary of A1, A2 & A3 of Student Checklist 2136

The Effect of Peer Review, OnCUE Journal, 7(2), pages 130-138

Discussions and Concluding Remarks
The results of the peer reviews and the comparison of the students’ and teacher’s
review indicate clearly that peer review using a checklist is effective based on thefollowing results and findings:r Student Checklist 2 shows a greater use of “Yes” (A1) than before peer
review, showing satisfactory overall improvements.
r Students’ reviews are more positive than the teacher’s mostly in aspects oflanguage, indicating either students are less concerned about grammaticalaspects or students need more training in reviewing language, or both.
r Students appear to be more conscious about the points on the checklist
when writing Draft 2, which is one of the advantages of peer review.
Future works including interviews and discussions with students should becarried out to investigate the marked differences between students and teacher
reviews shown here.

References
Hansen, J., & Liu, J. (2005). Guiding principles for effective peer response. ELTJournal, 59(1), 31-38.
Hyland, F. (2000). ESL writers and feedback: Giving more autonomy tolearners. Language Teaching Research, 4(1), 33-54.
Mangelsdorf, K. (1992). Peer review in the ESL composition classroom: What
do the students think? ELT Journal, 46(3), 274-284.
Mendonca, C. O., & Johnson, K. E. (1994). Peer review negotiation: Revision
activities in ESL writing instruction. TESOL Quarterly, 28(4), 745-769.
Min, H. T. (2003). Why peer comments fail. English Teaching and Learning,27(3), 85-103.
Stoddard, B., & MacArthur, C. A. (1993). A peer editor strategy: Guiding
learning disabled students in response and revision. Research in the Teachingof English, 27(1), 76-103.
Villamil, O., & De Guerrero, M. (1996). Peer revision in the second language
classroom: Social cognitive activities, mediating strategies and aspects ofsocial behavior. Journal of Second Language Writing, 3(1), 51-57.
137

Shi

Authors’ biosProfessor Shi Jie has been teaching and researching in EFL and Bilingualism
in PRC, Singapore and Japan. She is also an EAP/ESP program developer andcourse designer and a teacher trainer. Her recent interests in research include
corpus linguistics, genre-approach to ESP, and innovation and change theories foreducation. shi.jie@uec.ac.jp
Yan Yu has been teaching in EFL in PRC and Japan for nearly 20 years. Her recent
interests in research include autonomous learning, learner-centered approach, ESP
for science and engineering, and genre-based approach. yu@tama.ac.jp
Uma Maheswari Rajagopalan is a research consultant in Brain Science Institute,RIKEN and an ESP teacher at UEC Tokyo. She received her Masters’ in Physics
and Applied Optics from India and Ph.D in Engineering from Hokkaido
University. Her research interests include EST apart from optics in biology andcognitive neuroscience. uma@brain.riken.jp
Received: October 1, 2013
Accepted: February 18, 2014138