EMPOWERING STUDENT LEARNING THROUGH ONLINE PEER ASSESSMENT

This paper critically discusses the role of peer assessment in the nursing profession and reviews the integration of peer assessment within undergraduate nursing education. Aspects of the undergraduate-nursing curriculum specifically focus on enabling students to critically examine patient and professional safety within clinical governance frameworks, structures and evidence-based practice. Within this study, peer assessment, enabled through Moodle, was identified as an innovative assessment strategy to support student active engagement by linking teaching and assessment to learning. The authors contend that the alignment of methods of teaching, learning and assessment with the professional working environment and evaluating the characteristics of quality work by assessing their peers is means by which a collaborative and supportive learning environment can be facilitated. The paper will present an impact evaluation of students' engagement with online peer assessment in an undergraduate programme. Tangentially, the advantages and disadvantages of this approach will be critiqued, in addition to the reliability of grading criteria through the use of rubrics or checklists.