Reliability and validity of student peer assessment in medical education: A systematic review
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Peer assessment has been demonstrated to be an effective educational intervention for health science students. AIMS: This study aims to give an overview of all instruments or questionnaires for peer assessments used in medical and allied health professional educational settings and their psychometric characteristics as described in literature. METHODS: A systematic literature search was carried out using the electronic databases Pubmed, Embase, ERIC, PsycINFO and Web of Science, including all available inclusion dates up to May 2010. RESULTS: Out of 2899 hits, 28 studies were included, describing 22 different instruments for peer assessment in mainly medical educational settings. Although most studies considered professional behaviour as a main subject of assessment and described peer assessment usually as an assessment tool, great diversity was found in educational settings and application of peer assessment, dimensions or constructs as well as number of items and scoring system per questionnaire, and in psychometric characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: Although quite a few instruments of peer assessment have been identified, many questionnaires did not provide sufficient psychometric data. Still, the final choice of an instrument for educational purposes can only be justified by its sufficient reliability and validity as well as the discriminative and evaluative purposes of the assessment.
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A significant proportion of studies of peer assessment have focused on the accuracy of marks generated and the potential for a number calculated from peer assessments to contribute to grades.
“Similar to the literature regarding self-assessment, a significant proportion of studies of peer assessment have focused on the accuracy of marks generated and the potential for a number calculated from peer assessments to contribute to grades (Falchikov and Goldfinch 2000; Speyer et al. 2011).”
From Developing evaluative judgement: enabling students to make decisions about the quality of work (2018) · cites this paper as Speyer et al. 2011
The Introduction and Overview of studies describe research on the reliability and validity of peer assessments, supporting the point about examining the accuracy of ratings. But the Method section says this review excluded studies in which peers assigned report marks without a defined assessment instrument; it does not establish that a significant proportion of studies examined using calculated peer-assessment numbers in grades. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredGuiding students to focus on specific competencies ensures that their critiques remain relevant and actionable.
“For example, guiding students to focus on specific competencies, such as clinical reasoning or communication, ensures that their critiques remain relevant and actionable [94].”
From Formative assessment and feedback in medical education: A practical guide: AMEE Guide No. 189 (2026) · cites this paper as [94]
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“…to the literature regarding self-assessment, a significant proportion of studies of peer assessment have focused on the accuracy of marks generated and the potential for a number calculated from peer assessments to contribute to grades (Falchikov and Goldfinch 2000; Speyer et al. 2011).”
BackgroundTai, J. H.-M., Canny, B. J., Haines, T. P., & Molloy, E. K. (2016) · Advances in Health Sciences Education · doi:10.1007/s10459-015-9659-0 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Speyer, R., Pilz, W., Van Der Kruis, J., & Brunings, J. W.
- Affiliations
- HAN University of Applied Sciences (NL)
- Maastricht University Medical Centre (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Speyer, Renée
- Venue
- Medical Teacher
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2011-10-24
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- e572-e585
- ISSN
- 0142-159X (ISSN-L)
- 1466-187X
- OpenAlex
- W2128450533
- Cited by
- 123
- References
- 67
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 1.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Medical Teacher (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ResearchOnline at James Cook University (James Cook University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Innovations in Medical Education
- Social Sciences › Education › Student Assessment and Feedback
- Social Sciences › Education › Health Education and Validation
- Keywords
- peer assessment, medical education, psychometric properties, reliability statistics, validity, assessment instruments, professional conduct, allied health education, student assessment
- MeSH terms
- Education, Medical, Educational Measurement, Humans, Peer Group, Psychometrics, Students, Medical, Reproducibility of Results
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