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ET
48,7 Developing employability skills:
peer assessment in higher
education
508
Simon Cassidy
Directorate of Psychology, University of Salford, Salford, UK

Abstract
Purpose – Reports examining graduate employment issues suggest that employers are concerned by
the lack of employability skills exhibited by entry-level job applications. It is also suggested that
employers consider it the responsibility of educational institutions to develop such skills. The current
study seeks to identify peer assessment as a potential strategy for developing employability skills and
aims to examine – from a students’ perspective – the process of introducing peer assessment into
higher education teaching programmes.
Design/methodology/approach – The focus of the study was on the assessment of students’
attitudes towards both being assessed by and assessing other students’ work. Data were gathered
from a sample of undergraduate students following a structured peer assessment exercise.
Findings – In line with previous work, the study found that students expressed a positive attitude
towards peer assessment but had concerns relating to their capability to assess peers and to the
responsibility associated with assessing peers.
Practical implications – Results suggest that, whilst students would accept peer assessment as an
element of their course, its introduction at least should focus on the development of evaluative skills
(i.e. emphasising learning rather than assessment) and provide support to alleviate an onerous sense of
responsibility. It is concluded that, if the value of peer assessment – in terms of employability skill
development – is accepted, then it should be adopted as regular practice on undergraduate
programmes wishing to equip students with a complete repertoire of employment-relevant skills.
Originality/vale – The paper provides useful information on developing employability skills among
students in higher education through peer assessment.
Keywords Employment, Skills, Students, Assessment
Paper type Research paper

Education þ Training
Vol. 48 No. 7, 2006
pp. 508-517
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0040-0912
DOI 10.1108/00400910610705890
Introduction
The skills learned by students during their academic career can be placed into the two
broad skill categories of technical and non-technical. Technical skills refer to
subject-specific or content-specific knowledge and competence relevant to, or within, a
particular discipline such as information technology or psychology. Technical skills
then are those skills necessary for competent functioning within a particular discipline,
while non-technical skills are those skills which can be deemed relevant across many
different jobs or professions (Sherer and Eadie, 1987, p. 16):
Employability Skills are not job specific, but are skills which cut horizontally across all
industries and vertically across all jobs from entry level to chief executive officer.
Because of their relevance to professional functioning, non-technical skills are
commonly referred to as employability skills and include basic skills such as oral
communication, reading, writing and arithmetic, higher order skills such as learning
skills and strategies, problem solving, decision making, and affective skills and traits
such as dependability and responsibility, a positive attitude, interpersonal skills Developing
(co-operation, team work), self-discipline and self-management and ability to work employability
without supervision (Cotton, 2001). Cotton (2001) reports that the literature
surrounding employability indicates that whilst employers may be satisfied in skills
general with the level of technical skill of new graduates, they are not convinced by
their competency in non-technical abilities or employability skills. In her extensive
review of key issues in employability, Cotton (2001) found that: employers want 509
employees to possess employability skills; that employers value generic employability
skills over specific occupational (technical) skills; and that employers consider many
entry-level job applications to lack the required employability skills and express deep
concerns regarding this deficiency. It is a fair conclusion then that those skills
bracketed within the term “employability skills” are fast becoming a requirement for
employment rather than desirable, and that employers see the responsibility for the
development of such skills lying with educational institutions. With this in mind, and
given that a primary aim of many undergraduate – if not all – programmes is
employability, then course development, delivery and assessment should include the
development of employability skills as a major focus.
There are a number of factors reported in the literature that might contribute to the
successful teaching of employability skills. These include instructional method,
teacher attributes, the inclusion of skill acquisition as an explicit learning goal, student
involvement and activity, relevant context and student responsibility and autonomy.
Cotton’s (2001) review of the issue of teaching employability skills demonstrates the
need to identify and implement specific educational practices which directly address
the issue of employability skill development – which may not be entirely
straightforward given the diversity of constraints governing many educational
settings.
Student peer assessment is one example of educational practice which is likely to
contribute positively towards the development employability skills. It is described by
Falchikov and Goldfinch (2000) as involving engaging with standards and criteria in
order to make judgements about the work of peers. It is associated with the
development of the ability to make judgements, to supervise one’s own work and to
encourage responsibility for learning (Gibbs, 1995). As such, the current study
considers both the potential of peer assessment for developing skills relevant to
employability and the potential problems when introducing it in undergraduate
teaching programmes.
It is generally accepted that a programme of assessment which incorporates an
element of peer assessment – in some form – is beneficial to learning (Falchikov and
Goldfinch, 2000). Specific benefits cited include:
.
increased student responsibility and autonomy; evaluative skill development;
.
insight into assessment procedures and expectations for high quality work;
.
students work harder with the knowledge that they will be assessed by their
peers;
.
potential for providing increased levels of feedback without increasing demands
on tutors (Walker, 2001); and
.
encourages deep rather than surface learning (Brown et al., 1994).
ET Boud (1999) also highlights the particular potential that peer learning and assessment
48,7 has for helping meet both the goals of “new” undergraduate courses, which emphasise
more generic learning outcomes, and the demands of graduate employers, that
graduates present with a “. . . broader range of skills and are able to communicate
beyond their specialisation” (Boud, 1999, p. 415). In addition, Boud notes that those
skills which develop through peer learning and assessment are also relevant to the
510 cultivation of life long learning, which Maher and Neild (2005) identify as a highly
valued attribute for maximising graduate employability.
There is also evidence which suggests that students often fail fully to understand or
utilise assessment criteria, do not know what a good or bad piece of work looks like, are
focused towards the awarded mark or grade and, as such, fail to read, understand or
adequately process tutors’ feedback or act upon it (Crème and Lea, 1997; Ding, 1998;
Glover and Brown, 2006; Hounsell, 1987; Lea and Street, 1998; Wotjas, 1998). This is
further reason for the inclusion of peer assessment given its reputed benefits in terms
of skill development and improved learning and performance on assessed work (Brown
et al., 1994).
Despite such compelling justification and some evidence of increasing
implementation, it is suggested that many undergraduate courses are still failing to
fully incorporate peer assessment for either formative or summative assessment. The
reason for this is likely to be due, in part at least, to reports that the introduction and
successful implementation of peer assessment is notoriously problematic, particularly
in terms of concerns regarding reliability and validity and resistance from students.
Studies examining peer and self-assessment have raised issues relating to the
reliability of marks, the potential for group and gender bias and acceptance by
students (Boud and Falchikov, 1989; Falchikov and Goldfinch, 2000). The current
study focuses on students’ attitudes towards peer assessment. Reports suggest that
while students welcome peer assessment in some form, they are uncomfortable taking
on the responsibility of assessment (Walker, 2001). Concerns expressed by students
include: lack capability to properly assess and high levels of subjectivity; too much
responsibility and uncomfortable with the feeling of ‘power’; lack of formal training;
confidentiality and the opportunity for other students to use their ideas (Cheng and
Warren, 1997; Walker, 2001); and lack of an explicit educational rationale for peer
assessment and the belief that assessing work is the tutor’s job.
The study reports responses from students taking part in a structured peer
assessment exercise and examines, independently, their responses to both being
assessed by their peers and assessing the work of their peers.

Method
Design
The design combined self-report questionnaires and guided open discussion in a mixed
method approach. Questionnaires required participants to provide their responses to
statements relating to assessing their peers and being assessed by their peers along a
six-point Likert scale and to respond to an open-ended item asking how the process of
peer assessment could be improved. Participants’ verbal comments regarding their
experience of assessing peers and being assessed by peers were recorded during an
open discussion led by the researcher.
Participants Developing
A group of 41 second year undergraduate students taking either an applied social employability
psychology or health psychology module took part in the peer assessment exercise
(mean age 21 years; 28 female, three male, ten unknown). This particular group of skills
students were selected on the bases that, as second year students, they had experience
of the assessment system and because the module the students were enrolled on had
associated assignments which had a familiar and well-structured formats. 511

Materials
In order to explore students’ experiences and perceptions of and opinions towards peer
assessment, a 20-item Student Attitude Towards Peer Assessment questionnaire was
constructed. The items were informed by and derived from the literature on peer
assessment, which highlighted issues which were pertinent in achieving a measure of
students’ attitudes towards both assessing other students’ work, and being assessed by
other students.
Students responded to each item along a six-point Likert scale from strongly
agree to strongly disagree. Examples of both positively worded and negatively
worded items were included to control for affirmation bias.
Example items are:
.
I felt uncomfortable assessing other students’ work;
.
I found the exercise very helpful for my own work;
.
I felt unhappy about being assessed by another student; and
.
I would find it useful to have my work peer assessed on a regular basis.

Scores for negatively worded items were reversed so that a higher score on each item
indicated a positive attitude towards peer assessment. Applying the principle that
assessing other students’ work and having your own work assessed by another
student may be distinct practices – and in line with Walker (2001) who included
separate scales for examining student perceptions of group work and peer assessment
– the questionnaire included ten items relating to each of these activities. Summing the
scores for each set of ten items independently gives independent measures of attitude
towards peers assessing and attitude towards being peer assessed. Pooling the 20
items provides a more generic [overall] measure of attitude towards peer assessment.
Although internal consistency [reliability] was acceptable for both the overall 20-item
scale (alpha ¼ 0:8) and being assessed ten-item sub-scale (alpha ¼ 0:78), the peer
assessing ten-item sub-scale fell below conventional acceptable alpha of 0.8
(alpha ¼ 0:55). Some authors do, however, advocate a more lenient range of between
0.5 and 0.7 (Bowling, 2002).
The questionnaire also included a final open-ended item repeated in the context of
peer assessing and being peer assessed: “What could be done to improve this part of
the process”.
For the purposes of descriptive analysis (see Tables I and II) participants’ responses
along the six-point scale was reduced to the bipolar responses agree (scoring 1-3) or
disagree (scoring 4-6).
ET
Agree Disagree
48,7 (%) (%)

Felt uncomfortable 51 49
Felt capable 41 59
Enjoyed it 61 39
512 Helped own work 78 22
Hard to give useful feedback 46 54
Was surprised at quality of work 37 63
Want more of it 78 22
Improved understanding of tutor’s expectations 80 20
Table I. Able to understand assessment criteria 67 27
Students’ attitude Used assessment criteria to give feedback 76 24
towards assessing other
students’ work Note: n ¼ 41

Agree Disagree
(%) (%)

Unhappy being assessed by other students 10 90

Excuse for tutors to do less work 12 88
Worried that my ideas might be stolen 22 78
Felt other students were capable of giving useful feedback 65 35
I agreed with the feedback which was given 77 23
I will make changes according to feedback 77 23
Feedback related to assessment criteria 69 31
Would like regular peer assessment 75 25
Table II.
Happy for peer assessment of summative work 55 45
Students’ attitude
Assessment was harsher than if tutor had done it 20 80
towards being
peer-assessed Note: n ¼ 39

Procedure
Students were asked to bring a completed draft of their assignment to a timetabled
teaching session, when they would have the opportunity to (anonymously) receive
feedback on their work from other students and to provide feedback on other students.
At the beginning of the session students were briefed on the purpose of the session and
given guidelines for feedback (see the Appendix). Draft assignments, copy assignment
guidelines and assessment criteria and blank feedback sheets were distributed to
students. Both assignments and feedback sheets were anonymous. Although no time
limit was placed on the exercise, students tended to spend between 30-45 minutes
assessing work and completing the feedback sheet. Once the exercise was complete
and students had had the opportunity to read feedback, students completed the
two-part 20-item questionnaire, measuring attitude towards assessing peers and being
assessed by peers (see Tables I and II). At the end of the session, a more general open
discussion (led by the researcher) relating to the peer assessment exercise took, during
which students’ comments were recorded, as follows:
 .
Concern regarding the risk of copying, especially for less prescriptive work such Developing
as essays. employability
.
Would like support from tutors. skills
.
Students who fail to submit draft work but take part in peer assessment sessions
may benefit unfairly from others’ work.
.
Regular sessions would improve ability to peer assess. 513
.
Suggested a “dummy” submission date for work to ensure that all students took
part fully in peer assessment exercises.
.
Students do already focus on assessment criteria for completion of assessed
work.
.
Felt that the assessment of other students’ work was more beneficial to their
work than the feedback they received from being assessed.
.
Some were uncomfortable at having their work seen by other students.
.
Enjoyed the experience and would like to see peer assessment introduced to the
course.
.
Many students (around half) failed to attend the peer assessment session and it
was felt that this was largely to do with them being pre-warned and feeling either
apprehensive about the exercise or not having work prepared.
. Students noted that a lot of the work they assessed was only partially completed
which made it difficult to assess and give feedback.

Results
Despite the concerns of some students regarding their capability to assess and feelings
of unease when assessing other students’ work, the majority enjoyed it, felt it would
benefit their work and wanted more peer assessment. The suggestion that students fail
to understand or utilise assessment criteria also seems unfounded, with 67 per cent of
students reporting understanding assessment criteria and 76 per cent using
assessment criteria.
Only a small minority of students expressed concerns about being assessed by their
peers and about the potential for their ideas to be stolen. The large majority (. 77 per
cent) of students felt that feedback was of value, was no harsher than tutors’ feedback
and were prepared to make changes to their work according to feedback. The large
majority of students also felt that they were in favour of regular peer assessment,
although a smaller majority (55 per cent) were in favour of peer assessment for
summative work.

Comparative analysis
Mean total scores derived from summing questionnaire item scores for each of the two
sub-scales and the overall scale show that students presented positive attitude towards
peer assessing (t ¼ 10:25, df 40, two-tailed, p , 0:001), being peer assessed (t ¼ 10:88,
df 38, two-tailed, p , 0:001) and overall peer assessment (t ¼ 41:331, df 38, two-tailed,
p , 0:001)[1]. Students did, however, exhibit a more positive attitude towards being
assessed when compared with assessing peers (t ¼ 3:333, df 38, two-tailed, p ¼ 0:002).
ET Correlational analysis
48,7 Correlational analysis revealed a moderate to high significant positive association
between students’ attitude towards assessing their peers and being assessed by their
peers (r ¼ 0:68, n ¼ 39, 2-tailed, p , 0:01).
Comments largely reflected and elaborated on the results from the quantitative
questionnaire data.
514
Discussion
The overall results from the study suggest that students are positively disposed
towards peer assessment and that although students were more positive towards being
assessed than assessing, a positive attitude towards peer assessing was associated
with a positive attitude towards being assessed. A similar association has been
reported by Walker (2001) between student attitudes towards group work and peer
assessment. The value and potential benefits of peer assessment were recognised by
students, with the majority in favour of its introduction on a more frequent basis for
both formative and summative assessment – although the effect was considerably
weaker for summative assessment. Students reported that they were happy to be
assessed by other students, with only a minority expressing concerns about having
their ideas stolen – previously suggested as a major cause of student resistance to peer
assessment. They felt that peer assessment had improved their work and increased
their understanding of tutors’ expectations. Importantly – and contrary to earlier
suggestion (Crème and Lea, 1997; Hounsell, 1987) – students also reported that they
both understood assessment criteria and that they focus on them as a basis for the
completion of and assessment of work. As such, tutors should continue their efforts to
provide adequate guidance in this respect.
Students did, however, continue to express concerns regarding theirs and others
capability to assess, as well as feeling uncomfortable with the responsibility of
assessing others’ work. This is a common theme reported in studies of students’
attitude towards peer assessment (Cheng and Warren, 1997; Walker, 2001), which was
highlighted here with students showing a more positive attitude towards being
assessed than assessing other students. That students felt more positive towards being
assessed than assessing (Table III) – despite reporting assessing others as more
beneficial (see list of comments above) – is another indication of their acute awareness
of the responsibility of assessing and was further reflected during group discussion
when students expressed the need for regular sessions to improve their familiarity
with, and ability to, assess. Boud (1999) has emphasised the need for opportunities to
practice self-assessment in order to develop the composite skills, while Walker (2001)
has demonstrated the benefit of such opportunities, reporting an attitude shift towards
a more positive perception of peer assessment once students had completed a peer

Overall peer assessment

Peer assessinga Being peer assesseda attitudeb
Table III.
Mean summed Mean 39.95 42.69 82.44
questionnaire scores for Sd 6.22 7.28 12.46
students’ attitudes
towards peer assessment Notes: a potential scoring range 10-60; b Potential scoring range 20-120
assessment exercise. Increasing students’ familiarity with peer assessment and Developing
improving their sense of ability to peer assess is likely to help alleviate the perceived employability
onerous sense of responsibility.
That responses were gathered from students following completion of a structured skills
peer assessment exercise is noteworthy given that students with no or less experience
of peer assessment have been reported as holding less positive views towards the
practice (Venables and Summit, 2003; Walker, 2001). In addition, it was noted that a 515
number of students from the targeted group were absent for the exercise, and it is
possible that those students who failed to take part did so because their attitudes
towards peer assessment are distinct form those students who did participate and on
whom data and findings are based. Notable were comments from the group, which
suggested that students who had not attended had done so because they had become
apprehensive about the peer assessment exercise. This raises the issue of negative
perception of peer assessment held by students without experience of the practice,
which, as Walker (2001) suggests, could develop into more positive perception with
experience. Thus, ensuring adequate exposure of all students to peer assessment
opportunities becomes a fundamental but critical element of successful
implementation.
Non-technical or employability skills have been identified as being of critical
importance to employers who express concerns regarding the lack of such skills in
entry-level job applications (Cotton, 2001). It can be argued that peer assessment
contributes positively towards the development of employability skills and should
therefore be a routinely implemented educational practice in higher education (Boud,
1999; Maher and Neild, 2005). Findings from the current study present evidence of
students’ positive attitude towards many aspects of peer assessment, indicating that
resistance from students should not be considered a factor when designing a
programme of study in higher education which fully embraces peer assessment as a
tool to aid both learning and assessment. Tutors must however accept that students
are likely to be unfamiliar with this form of assessment and that students are conscious
of both their inexperience and the responsibilities of peer assessment. As such, there is
a need for support and reassurance from tutors, providing clear guidance and a
meaningful and structured framework to enable students develop the necessary
evaluative skills to perform peer assessment and to help them accept the responsibility
of an assessor. Given the current emphasis on employability issues in higher education,
and the need for graduates to maximise their potential for employment by adding
generic employability skills to their repertoire of traditional technical skills and
knowledge, the provision of adequate opportunity to practice and develop these skills
must be a requirement of all undergraduate programmes which profess to develop
“capable graduates”.

Note
1. Single sample t-test: test values of 30 for sub-scales and 60 for overall scale were applied, i.e.
mid-point of potential scoring range.

References
Boud, D. (1999), “Avoiding the traps: seeking good practice in the use of self assessment and
reflection in professional practice”, Social Work Education, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 121-32.
ET Boud, D. and Falchikov, N. (1989), “Student self-assessment in higher education: a meta-analysis”,
Review of Educational Research, Vol. 59 No. 4, pp. 395-430.
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Open University Press, Buckingham.
Brown, S., Rust, C. and Gibbs, G. (1994), Strategies for Diversifying Assessment in Higher
Education, Oxford Centre for Staff Development, Oxford.
516 Cheng, W. and Warren, M. (1997), “Having second thoughts: student perceptions before and after
a peer assessment exercise”, Studies in Higher Education, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 233-9.
Cotton, K. (2001), Developing Employability Skills, Northwest Regional Educational Research
Laboratory, Portland, OR, available at: www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/8/c015.html (accessed
July 2006).
Crème, P. and Lea, M. (1997), Writing At University, OUP, Buckingham.
Ding, L. (1998), “Revisiting assessment and learning: implications of students’ perspectives on
assessment feedback”, paper presented at the Scottish Educational Research Association
Annual Conference, University of Dundee, Dundee, 25-26 September.
Falchikov, N. and Goldfinch, J. (2000), “Student peer assessment in higher education:
a meta-analysis comparing peer and teacher marks”, Review of Educational Research,
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Oxford.
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incomprehensible to be effective?”, Bioscience Education E-journal, Vol. 7.
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Eysenck, M.W. and Warren-Piper, D. (Eds), Student Learning: Research in Education and
Cognitive Psychology, SRHE/Open University, Milton Keynes.
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approach”, Studies in Higher Education, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 57-172.
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workforce development”, paper presented at the 9th Quality in Higher Education
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pp. 16-17.
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Further reading
Boud, D., Cohen, R. and Sampson, J. (1999), “Peer learning and assessment”, Assessment and
Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 413-26.
Dyck, B. (2002), “Peer assessment teaches students how to think”, Education World, available at:
www.education-world.com
Platt, J. (2002), “Self and peer assessment”, available at: www.bathspa.ac.uk/socassoss/section2.
htm
Appendix. Student guidance for providing formative peer assessment feedback Developing
.
All assessment and feedback must be anonymous. employability
.
Feedback can obviously be critical but must be framed in a positive manner, e.g. “the work
could be improved by . . . ”
skills
.
Suggestions for feedback must be feasible, i.e. achievable in a week for example.
.
Marking criteria, guidelines and/or feedback sheet must be made available to students
giving feedback. 517
.
Students are at liberty to utilise or ignore feedback as they wish.

Corresponding author
Simon Cassidy can be contacted at: s.cassidy@salford.ac.uk

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