Reliability and Validity

Individual student ratings are less reliable than individual faculty ratings, but the effective reliability of the average rating of five or six students is extremely reliable. Across several validation studies in several different courses, the validity of the average of five or six student ratings was also found to at least as high as that of a single instructor.

Impact on Authors

A study comparing peer feedback through SWoRD with instructor feedback found that student papers improved more from peer feedback (from five peers) than from feedback from a single instructor.

Impact on Reviewers

One study showed that reviewing papers (rating plus commmeenting ) lead to better quality papers in the reviewers' own writing. Moreover, justing reading other papers or just reading and evaluating other papers did not by themselves convey this benefit for one's own writing.