Abstract:

Peer assessment has been the theme of considerable research interest over the last decades, with numerous researchers defending the integration of peer assessment into the practices in the several graduation phases, namely in high education.

In this study, we aimed to understand what were the students’ perceptions of the peer assessment, inter and intra-group after its application in the courses of hospitality and tourism.

A quantitative approach was used with the application of an online survey to hospitality and tourism students at the end of the academic year. Our sample had 114 students, 30 men, and 84 females. 54 were master’s students and 60 were graduate students.

Our main results showed that the majority of the students consider having enough knowledge to assess their peers and recognize that this strategy implies a huge responsibility for the students. Although most of the students consider the colleagues’ assessment subjective and more subjective and less demanding than the teachers’ assessment. Moreover, this strategy is understood as a tool to develop individual knowledge. Most of the students did not refer any kind of difficulty doing inter or intra-group assessments. Regarding the overall perception of the strategy, most students consider that this strategy should be used in other classes, it is a fair assessment strategy and students should be involved in the peer assessment.

Results suggested that peer assessment should be considered as a possible strategy to integrate the assessment methodology. These findings provide support for peer assessment as a practice to implement in higher education and suggest several implications for the implementation of peer assessment in the classroom.

Keywords:

Intergroup, intra-group, hospitality, peer assessment, tourism.