Peer assessment of competence

OBJECTIVE: This instalment in the series on professional assessment summarises how peers are used in the evaluation process and whether their judgements are reliable and valid. METHOD: The nature of the judgements peers can make, the aspects of competence they can assess and the factors limiting the quality of the results are described with reference to the literature. The steps in implementation are also provided. RESULTS: Peers are asked to make judgements about structured tasks or to provide their global impressions of colleagues. Judgements are gathered on whether certain actions were performed, the quality of those actions and/or their suitability for a particular purpose. Peers are used to assess virtually all aspects of professional competence, including technical and non-technical aspects of proficiency. Factors influencing the quality of those assessments are reliability, relationships, stakes and equivalence. CONCLUSION: Given the broad range of ways peer evaluators can be used and the sizeable number of competencies they can be asked to judge, generalisations are difficult to derive and this form of assessment can be good or bad depending on how it is carried out.     

Peer assessment of professional competence

BACKGROUND: Current assessment formats for medical students reliably test core knowledge and basic skills. Methods for assessing other important domains of competence, such as interpersonal skills, humanism and teamwork skills, are less well developed. This study describes the development, implementation and results of peer assessment as a measure of professional competence of medical students to be used for formative purposes. METHODS: Year 2 medical students assessed the professional competence of their peers using an online assessment instrument. Fifteen randomly selected classmates were assigned to assess each student. The responses were analysed to determine the reliability and validity of the scores and to explore relationships between peer assessments and other assessment measures. RESULTS: Factor analyses suggest a 2-dimensional conceptualisation of professional competence: 1 factor represents Work Habits, such as preparedness and initiative, and the other factor represents Interpersonal Habits, including respect and trustworthiness. The Work Habits factor had moderate, yet statistically significant correlations ranging from 0.21 to 0.53 with all other performance measures that were part of a comprehensive assessment of professional competence. Approximately 6 peer raters were needed to achieve a generalisability coefficient of 0.70. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that it is possible to introduce peer assessment for formative purposes in an undergraduate medical school programme that provides multiple opportunities to interact with and observe peers.     

Peer review for nonphysicians.

The inclusion of nonphysician health care practitioners in hospital quality assurance programs is being called for by the new JCAH standards and PSRO regulations/PSRO guidelines require that nonphysicians be reviewed by peers.     

Peer preference: a way of evaluating social competence and behavioural well-being in early childhood

This study investigated the differences in peer preference, gender and temperamental characteristics of children aged five to six in relation to their social competence (SC) and behavioural adaptation. The data were collected through the use of ‘Picture Sociometry Scale’, ‘SC and Behaviour Evaluation Scale’ and ‘Short Temperament Scale for Children’. The participants in the study were 42 preschoolers, their mothers and the children's teachers. The study was carried out in a preschool in Ankara, Turkey. The results revealed that children with higher peer preference showed more SC. Moreover, children with higher level of persistence and approach revealed increased SC while children with higher reactivity had greater anger-aggression behavioural orientation.