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work of their peers (Liu, & Brantmeier, alternative for the traditional teacher-fronted
2019). It provides the learners with the writing assessment classes (Jensen &
opportunities to think about their own Fischer, 2005; Topping, 1998).
learning process, activate and employ their Moreover, a substantial body of
previous knowledge, make inductions, literature in L2 learning acknowledges
incorporate ideas, compensate for constructivist perspective as the dominant
inadequate understandings, and impart paradigm governing the main theories and
information and clarify their understandings principles in language learning and teaching
(Roscoe & Chi, 2007). Such activities can (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994; Ellis, 2003).
offer some advantages for learners including From this perspective, knowledge is not
enhanced learning and understanding, acquired but constructed by learners in a
improved assessment skills, and raised self- sense that different learners may have their
confidence (Boud & Falchikov, 2005; own different construction of knowledge and
Reinholz, 2016). By the same token, self- meanings (von Glasersfeld, 1996). This view
assessment, as another category of also recognizes and validates the active
alternative assessment, is defined as a means involvement of the learners in the whole
by which learners themselves assess and process of learning so that a more successful
make judgements about their own language and meaningful learning can be achieved
skills and competencies (Bailey, 1998). and guaranteed (von Glasersfeld, 2013).
Concerning its purported benefits, self- Within this line of enquiry, much attention is
assessment is argued to improve learners‟ directed to learners‟ engagement and
confidence and performance, raise learning participation in the assessment process
self-consciousness and autonomy, lower (Suzuki, 2009). As a result, this heightened
anxiety and increase self-regulated learning interest in the learner involvement as
as well as learner-focused instruction (e.g., advocated by the constructivist, learner-
Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Butler, 2018; centered approach lends much credit to self-
Little, 2009; Oscarson, 1989). assessment and peer-assessment as a means
As far as L2 wiring is concerned, the by which L2 learners could gain a kind of
practitioners should be able to train their self-consciousness and metacognitive ability
learners with good writings habits so that to identify their own strengths and
they can produce high-quality written drafts weaknesses and to set more feasible
(Baker, 2016). One of such good habits is objectives for themselves (Rea‐Dickins,
the fact that longer pieces of writings should 2008).
be divided into smaller pieces for each of As far as Iranian EFL context is
which the learners receive continuous concerned, a number of empirical studies
feedback (Bean, 2011). Although such have investigated the effects of self-
regular feedback provision can be very assessment and peer-assessment practices on
helpful for students‟ planned writings and L2 writing (Birjandi & Hadidi Tamjid, 2012;
thoughtful revisions, providing continuous Birjandi & Siyyari, 2011; Iraji, Enayat, &
feedback is demanding and time-consuming Momeni, 2016; Mazloomi & Khabiri, 2018;
for teachers as they should devote much among others). Nevertheless, these studies
time to reading the learners‟ drafts carefully were predominantly quantitative in terms of
and expressing their opinions on various the employed research methodology designs.
mechanical, rhetorical, and linguistic The findings obtained from such quantitative
dimensions of the writing tasks (Baker, studies require further replication in order to
2016; Herrington & Cadman, 1991). In the gain the basic scientific generalizability of
meantime, learners are less likely to the results (Porte, & Richards, 2012, p.284).
consistently answer to all feedbacks they According to Porte and Richards (2012), L2
receive and may feel uncomfortable or writing is claimed to “present an
frustrated to be given continuous teacher increasingly diverse nature of scope and
feedback (Jonsson, 2013). Also, given the topics, which can easily result in conflicting,
limited class hours dedicated to L2 writing fragmented, and consequently confusing
classes, teachers may unable to provide research outcomes. Replication can help
feedback on various drafts of learners in bring some order to this situation by
relatively bigger classes. As a result of these focusing on the „„why‟‟ of previous
seeming warranted hurdles for L2 writing findings.” Additionally, in the world of
practitioners, numerous writing researchers practice in Iranian EFL classrooms, L2
have turned to peer-assessment and self- writing practitioners still pursue traditional
assessment as a viable and alluring instructional procedures in their own
Cite this article as: Fathi, J. & Khodabakhsh, M. R. (2019). The Role of Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment
in Improving Writing Performance of Iranian EFL Students. International Journal of English Language &
Translation Studies. 7(3). 01-10.
Page | 2
The Role of Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment in Improving… Jalil Fathi & Mohammad Reza Khodabakhsh
classrooms and “incorporating formative different universities. For the purpose of the
assessment tools, collaborative tasks, study intervention, 11 paragraphs during a
portfolio writing, and other process-and university semester were written and self-
genre-based strategies were among activities rated or peer-rated by the participants of the
absent from the majority of writing classes” two groups. The results revealed that
(Naghdipour, 2016, p. 85). although both self- and peer-assessment
Therefore, in order to partially fill activities contributed to enhancing writing
these raised gaps and to shed more light on performance and the rating accuracy of the
the effectiveness of self-assessment and learners, the peer-assessment group
peer-assessment in enhancing L2 writing outperformed the self-assessment group in
performance, the purpose of this study was terms of writing performance.
set to investigate the effect of self- In another study, Birjandi and Hadidi
assessment and peer-assessment on writing Tamjid (2012) examined the impact of self-
performance of Iranian EFL students. assessment, and peer-assessment on writing
Moreover, this study sought to compare the performance of EFL learners. In so doing, a
effectiveness of the two types of alternative number of 157 intermediate English major
assessment (i.e., self- and peer-assessment) students were divided into five groups, four
in improving the writing performance of the of which received particular treatments and
participants of the study. one group served as the control group.
2. Literature Review Group one carried out journal writing as a
During the late 1990s, language self-assessment technique. Group two were
assessment witnessed a kind of paradigm engaged in self-assessment of their writings,
shift by which the positivist norm-referenced group three used peer-assessment activities,
paper-and-pencil tests were replaced by and group four conducted both self-
more contextualized learner-focused assessment and peer-assessment for their
assessments whose primary purpose was to writings. Furthermore, all the groups
enhance learning rather than to objectively received teacher assessment except for
measure what has been learned (Gipps, group four (self-assessment and peer-
1994). In this line of research, much assessment group). The control group was
attention was directed towards alternative provided with just teacher assessment.
assessment and its sub-categories as Additionally, there was teacher assessment
appropriate and viable alternatives to in all experimental groups, except the fourth
traditional tests (Hamp-Lyons, 2009). As group, i.e., the self- and peer assessment
two major types of alternative assessment, group. The findings of the study indicated
self-assessment and peer-assessment have that group two (self-assessment) and group
received much attention by L2 scholars and three (peer-assessment) had the highest
practitioners (Sambell, McDowell, & positive influence on writing enhancement
Montgomery, 2012). of the study participants.
Use of self- and peer-assessment in In another study, Khonbi and
L2 writing classes have enjoyed substantial Sadeghi (2012) probed the impact of self-
research attention in L2 literature and assessment, peer-assessment, and teacher
numerous empirical studies have been assessment on achievement of Iranian EFL
carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of learners. In so doing, four intact groups from
these two categories of alternative three universities were randomly assigned
assessment in enhancing writing into one of the three types of assessments
performance of language learners (Liu & (i.e., self-, peer-, teacher-assessments) and
Brantmeier, 2019; Zhao, 2018a, 2018b). one control group. The results of this
Although it is beyond the scope and aim of research revealed significant differences
this study to review all the studies among the groups. Overall, it was found that
investigating the effects of employing self- peer-assessment group outperformed the
and peer-assessment activities in L2 writing other three groups. The second highest
classes, to ground the purpose of this study, performance was that of self-assessment
some of the more illuminative studies are group, followed by the teacher-assessment
reviewed in this section. For example, group. Similarly, Iraji, Enayat, and Momeni
Birjandi and Siyyari (2011) probed the (2016) probed the impact of self-assessment
impact of self- and peer-assessment and peer-assessment practices on the writing
practices on writing performance and rating ability of Iranian EFL students in
accuracy of Iranian EFL students. The argumentative writings. To this end, thirty-
participants of this research were 198 six intermediate EFL learners were chosen
Iranian students of English majors from and became homogeneous according to the
Cite this article as: Fathi, J. & Khodabakhsh, M. R. (2019). The Role of Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment
in Improving Writing Performance of Iranian EFL Students. International Journal of English Language &
Translation Studies. 7(3). 01-10.
Page | 4
The Role of Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment in Improving… Jalil Fathi & Mohammad Reza Khodabakhsh
proficiency, Oxford Placement Test (OPT) As discussed above, before the start of
(Allen, 2004) was administered to the experiment, the language proficiency test
students of both groups (self- and peer- (i.e., OPT) was administered to the
assessment). OPT is considered as a reliable participants of the two intact classes so as to
and valid standard English proficiency test get sure about the homogeneity of them.
which can be administered to different Then a timed-writing essay (Topic 1) was
number of learners with various proficiency given to the participants of both the self-
levels (Allen, 2004). The version of OPT assessment group and the peer-assessment
used in this study contained multiple-choice group as the pre-test of the study in order to
items measuring vocabulary, grammar, and measure their writing performance prior to
reading. There was also an optional writing starting the interventions. According to this
section. The internal consistency of this test pre-test, all the participants were required to
as estimated by Cronbach‟s alpha in the write an English essay on the assigned topic
present study was reported to be 0.81. (Topic 1) in a 45-minute allocated time.
Timed-writing Essays Afterwards, the writing course, in
To measure the writing performance which one two-hour session was held each
of the participants before (i.e., as the pre- week, the basics of paragraph writing were
test) and after the treatment (i.e., as the post- instructed. For the objectives of the present
test), two 45-minute writing essays were study, self-assessment and peer-assessment
administered to the participants of both practices were conducted in the two
groups. To this end, two general topics experimental groups. The same materials
which did not require any particular and coursbook were employed by the same
technical background knowledge were instructors in both classes. The main
assigned for each administration. employed coursebook was Paragraph
Topic 1: Some people argue that it might be Development (Arnaudet & Barrett, 1990).
better that children are raised in the During the early sessions of the
countryside than in big cities. What is your treatment, the basic instructions on writing a
opinion? paragraph were provided to the students.
Topic 2: Some people argue that success is These basic instructions included detailed
the result of hard work and luck has no explanations on how to brainstorm on a
effect on someone‟s success. What is your topic, to write a topic sentence, to support
opinion? main idea by using supporting sentences, to
3.3 The Writing Scoring Scale write concluding sentences to restate the
In order to score the participants‟ main idea, to relate sentences with each
essays, Jacobs et al.'s (1981) writing scale other through transition expressions, and to
was used which is mainly based on an write more cohesive and coherent
analytical scoring procedure. The paragraphs. Moreover, the students were
effectiveness of this writing scoring rubric taught on how to develop a better
has been verified by Brown and Baily introductory, body, and concluding
(1984). According to this scale, a written paragraphs. In addition, the students of both
text or an essay should be evaluated against self- and peer-assessment groups were
a set of five criteria or subcategories such as trained on how to use the writing scoring
content, organization, vocabulary, language rubric to assess the written tasks and essays.
use, and mechanics. This rubric consists of a To accomplish the particular objectives of
100-point scheme based on which 30 points the study, the students of the peer-
are devoted to the content, 25 points to assessment group were required to assess the
language use (mainly syntax), 20 points to written tasks and the paragraphs of their
organization, 20 points to vocabulary use, peers on a regular basis, whereas the
and 5 points to mechanics. To ensure the students in the self-assessment group were
inter-rater reliability of the given scores to required to assess their own written
the essays, about 30 percent of the written paragraphs and tasks. When the treatment
essays for both topics in the pre-test and the sessions were completed, another timed
post-test were rated by two independent writing essay (Topic 2) was administered to
researchers who were familiar with the the both groups to measure their writing
scoring rubric. The given scores of the two ability as the post- test of the study.
raters as well as those of the researchers 4. Results
were evaluated by Cohen‟s Kappa‟s inter- As previously discussed, first OPT
rater reliability test. The measured reliability was first given to the participants to ensure
index turned out to be 0.80. that they are not of heterogeneous language
3.4 Procedure proficiency backgrounds. The reason for
administering OPT was the fact that writing peer-assessment), and the dependent
performance can be influenced by the global variable was the participants‟ scores on the
language proficiency. Then in order to post-test of timed-writing essay. The pre-test
compare the OPT mean scores of the two scores of writing performance were
groups, an independent-samples t-test was considered as the covariate in the ANCOVA
performed. The results of the independent- analysis.
samples t-test (see Table 1) indicated that Assumption evaluations revealed that
there was not any statistically significant the assumptions of normality, homogeneity
difference between the mean scores of the of variance, linearity and homogeneity of
peer-assessment group (M = 41.92, SD = regression slopes were all satisfactory. More
11.26) and the self-assessment (M = 44.42, particularly, the assumption of homogeneity
SD = 11.31); t (44) = -.796, p > 0.05), of regression slope was investigated by
suggesting that the both groups were not testing the interaction effect of the
heterogeneous with regard to global English independent variable and the covariate. The
competence before beginning the interaction effect of writing performance on
intervention. the pre-test and the independent variable
Table 1: Results of the OPT for each group was not significant (p = 0.09).
The results of the ANCOVA analysis
(see Table 3) using the General Linear
Modeling approach in SPSS showed that a
statistically significant difference existed
Then for the purpose of examining the between the peer-assessment group and self-
effects of peer- and self-assessment assessment group in the mean scores on the
activities on the writing performance of the posttest of writing performance; F(1, 43) =
participants, two paired-samples t-test were 17.13, p = 0.000, partial eta squared = 0.28).
performed to evaluate the change in the These results indicated that doing peer-
mean scores of both groups from the pretest assessment practices was more effective
to posttest. As seen in Table 2, there was a than doing self-assessment activities in
statistically significant increase from the improving writing performance of the
pretest to posttest of writing performance for participants.
both the peer-assessment group (t(23) = - Table 3: ANCOVA results for writing
9.67, p < 0.00) and the self-assessment performance scores
group (t(21) = -7.77, p < 0.00). As presented
in Table 2, the writing performance mean
score for the peer-assessment group
increased from 11.35 on the pretest to 14.79
on the posttest. By the same token, the
writing performance mean score of the self-
assessment group was raised from 10.90 on
the pretest to 12.72 on the posttest. These
results showed that writing performance of
both groups increased significantly after
5. Discussion and Conclusions
experiencing the two interventions.
In order to shed more light on the role
Table 2: Paired samples t-test for writing
performance scores of alternative assessment in fostering L2
learning and to replicate the previous similar
studies in order to increase the
generalizability of results, as recommended
by researchers (e.g., Porte, & Richards,
2012), this study was set to investigate the
effect of self-assessment and peer-
Furthermore, a One-Way Analysis of assessment on writing performance of a
Covariance (ANCOVA) was performed on sample of Iranian EFL students. The
writing performance scores to evaluate the findings of this study revealed that both self-
effects of the two types of alternative and peer-assessment contributed to
assessments employed in the present study improving the writing performance of the
on the L2 writing performance. The participants. This finding is in line with the
independent variable was the type of findings of a significant bulk of previous
intervention (i.e. self-assessment versus studies (Birjandi & Hadidi Tamjid, 2012;
Cite this article as: Fathi, J. & Khodabakhsh, M. R. (2019). The Role of Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment
in Improving Writing Performance of Iranian EFL Students. International Journal of English Language &
Translation Studies. 7(3). 01-10.
Page | 6
The Role of Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment in Improving… Jalil Fathi & Mohammad Reza Khodabakhsh
Birjandi & Siyyari, 2011; Iraji, Enayat, & to give peer feedback enhanced their own
Momeni, 2016; Liu & Brantmeier, 2019; writing competencies more than the learners
Mazloomi & Khabiri, 2018; Ratminingsih et who were taught to just use the feedbacks of
al., 2018; among others). Furthermore, this peers. Similarly, Li, Liu, & Steckelberg
finding is consistent with a substantial body (2010) found that the feedback quality
of research suggesting that learners‟ provided by the student reviewers to their
involvement in the assessment and feedback peers is correlated with the improved
process enhances the quality of the written performance of the reviewers‟ final
drafts (e.g., Jensen & Fischer, 2005; Reiber, products.
2006; Topping et al., 2000). From the theoretical point of view,
To justify such finding, it can be the role of peer-assessment in improving the
argued that self-assessment and peer- writing ability can be also justified through
assessment have made the writers integrate socio-cultural theory by underscoring the
the learned standards and criteria for better effectiveness of other-regulation (i.e.,
writing into their own revisions thereby receiving feedback from peers) in improving
increasing the quality of their final written learning outcomes (Lantolf & Aljaafreh,
drafts. Moreover, the participants‟ 1995). From socio-cultural perspective,
involvement in self-assessment and peer- language learning is facilitated and
assessment activities is likely to foster their developed first through other regulation
sense of autonomy, agency, and self- achieved via social interaction and then
regulation which helped them to critically internalized through self-regulation
analyze their own drafts and to try hard to (Vygotsky, 1978).
refine their written essays. As far as pedagogical implications of
Moreover, the results of the data the study are concerned, it is recommended
analysis indicated that the peer-assessment that L2 policy makers, curriculum
group outperformed the self-assessment developers, syllabus designers, teacher
group in writing performance measured by educators, test developers, and practitioners
timed-writing essays. This finding concurs take alternative assessment on the board
with the findings of a significant number of more seriously. Given that fact that the vast
previous studies which found peer- majority of Iranian EFL writing classes are
assessment to be more effective than self- still teacher-centered and traditional with
assessment in enhance EFL writing little students‟ participation in assessment
performance (Birjandi & Hadidi Tamjid, (Naghdipour, 2016), alternative assessments
2012; Birjandi & Siyyari, 2011; Hughes & such as peer- and self-assessment might be a
Large, 1993; among others). promising platform not only to enhance the
The improved performance of the learners‟ quality of writing but also to raise
peer-assessment group can be attributed to their writing motivation and self-confidence.
the fact that writers are likely exert more Implementing peer-assessment and self-
effort and pay more attention to their writing assessment practices in their own
tasks as they know their peers will see and classrooms, EFL teachers can assign a more
make judgements about their writings. This responsible and autonomous role to their
justification has been put forward and learners by means of which a more
verified by some researchers (e.g., Brindley motivational and self-regulated learning is
& Scoffield, 1998; Gao, Schunn, & Yu, induced and sustained. However, such a
2019; Reinholz, 2016; Schriver, 1989). change should be initiated from the top
Additionally, it might be argued that peer- where the policy-makers, stake-holders, and
assessment practices encouraged the curriculum developers should adopt a more
participants to become much involved in learner-focused perspective by allowing
identifying the errors of their peers and to more active involvement of the L2 learners
become more familiar with writing in their own learning assessment.
assessment checklists, a situation which Fulfillment of such a goal requires that
raised the participants‟ awareness of their teacher education programs prepare the
own strengths and weaknesses. This finding prospective and in-service teachers to be
is also in line with that of Lundstrom and equipped with both competence and
Baker (2009) who found that L2 writers can willingness to implement self-assessment
enhance their own quality of writing by and peer-assessment activities in their L2
transferring their acquired abilities through classrooms in general and in writing
reviewing the writings of their peers. instruction in particular. Moreover, syllabus
Furthermore, the findings of their study designers and test developers should also
revealed that the learners who were trained design and develop test tasks and activities
Cite this article as: Fathi, J. & Khodabakhsh, M. R. (2019). The Role of Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment
in Improving Writing Performance of Iranian EFL Students. International Journal of English Language &
Translation Studies. 7(3). 01-10.
Page | 8
The Role of Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment in Improving… Jalil Fathi & Mohammad Reza Khodabakhsh
Cite this article as: Fathi, J. & Khodabakhsh, M. R. (2019). The Role of Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment
in Improving Writing Performance of Iranian EFL Students. International Journal of English Language &
Translation Studies. 7(3). 01-10.
Page | 10