As shown, almost all students favoured anonymity, and most students thought that adequate instructions were given, and felt that they had learned useful lessons from having to review other students' work. The class was more or less evenly divided on whether they hoped to encounter anonymous peer review again, and whether the feedback received from peer review was more helpful than that received from conventional assessment. The outcomes of the exercise were complex. All students were exposed to anonymous peer review and got an opportunity to try on the shoes of the assessor, and all received two reviews of the same paper. Because reviews were uneven, this resulted in many combinations of thoughtful, articulate criticism, ill-founded criticism, praise with an insecure tone, cursory skimming, etc.
Students react as individuals.
Some liked the experience, and some did not. The administrative side of the exercise was smoother sailing than expected. Although anonymous peer review was more time consuming than conventional assessment in terms of paper handling, it roughly halved the professional time required for assessment, and at the same time reduced the stress associated with essay marking. The greatest shortcomings of the exercise were in the uneven quality of reviews-and the fact that the luck of the draw resulted in some students getting two unhelpful reviews. Its greatest strength is in its potential for formative learning and reduced costs in the marking of complex student work.