Peer review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers).[1] It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication. Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, e.g., medical peer review. It can also be used as a teaching tool to help students improve writing assignments.[2]
"Independent review" redirects here. For the academic journal, see The Independent Review.Henry Oldenburg (1619–1677) was a German-born British philosopher who is seen as the 'father' of modern scientific peer review.[3][4][5]
Professional[edit]
Professional peer review focuses on the performance of professionals, with a view to improving quality, upholding standards, or providing certification. In academia, peer review is used to inform decisions related to faculty advancement and tenure.[6]
A prototype professional peer review process was recommended in the Ethics of the Physician written by Ishāq ibn ʻAlī al-Ruhāwī (854–931). He stated that a visiting physician had to make duplicate notes of a patient's condition on every visit. When the patient was cured or had died, the notes of the physician were examined by a local medical council of other physicians, who would decide whether the treatment had met the required standards of medical care.[7]
Professional peer review is common in the field of health care, where it is usually called clinical peer review.[8] Further, since peer review activity is commonly segmented by clinical discipline, there is also physician peer review, nursing peer review, dentistry peer review, etc.[9] Many other professional fields have some level of peer review process: accounting,[10] law,[11][12] engineering (e.g., software peer review, technical peer review), aviation, and even forest fire management.[13]
Peer review is used in education to achieve certain learning objectives, particularly as a tool to reach higher order processes in the affective and cognitive domains as defined by Bloom's taxonomy. This may take a variety of forms, including closely mimicking the scholarly peer review processes used in science and medicine.[14][15]
Peer seminar[edit]
Peer seminar is a method that involves a speaker that presents ideas to an audience that also acts as a "contest".[43] To further elaborate, there are multiple speakers that are called out one at a time and given an amount of time to present the topic that they have researched. Each speaker may or may not talk about the same topic but each speaker has something to gain or lose which can foster a competitive atmosphere.[43] This approach allows speakers to present in a more personal tone while trying to appeal to the audience while explaining their topic.
Peer seminars may be somewhat similar to what conference speakers do, however, there is more time to present their points, and speakers can be interrupted by audience members to provide questions and feedback upon the topic or how well the speaker did in presenting their topic.[43]
Peer review in writing[edit]
Professional peer review focuses on the performance of professionals, with a view to improving quality, upholding standards, or providing certification. Peer review in writing is a pivotal component among various peer review mechanisms, often spearheaded by educators and involving student participation, particularly in academic settings. It constitutes a fundamental process in academic and professional writing, serving as a systematic means to ensure the quality, effectiveness, and credibility of scholarly work. However, despite its widespread use, it is one of the most scattered, inconsistent, and ambiguous practices associated with writing instruction.[44] Many scholars questioning its effectiveness and specific methodologies. Critics of peer review in classrooms express concerns about its ineffectiveness due to students' lack of practice in giving constructive criticism or their limited expertise in the writing craft overall.
Comparison and improvement[edit]
Magda Tigchelaar compares peer review with self-assessment through an experiment that divided students into three groups: self-assessment, peer review, and no review. Across four writing projects, she observed changes in each group, with surprisingly results showing significant improvement only in the self-assessment group. The author's analysis suggests that self-assessment allows individuals to clearly understand the revision goals at each stage, as the author is the most familiar with their own writing. Thus, self-checking naturally follows a systematic and planned approach to revision. In contrast, the effectiveness of peer review is often limited due to the lack of structured feedback, characterized by scattered, meaningless summaries and evaluations that fail to meet author's expectations for revising their work.[48]
Stephanie Conner and Jennifer Gray highlight the value of most students' feedback during peer review. They argue that many peer review sessions fail to meet students' expectations, as students, even as reviewers themselves, feel uncertain about providing constructive feedback due to their lack of confidence in their own writing. The authors further offer numerous improvement strategies across various dimensions, such as course content and specific implementation steps. For instance, the peer review process can be segmented into groups, where students present the papers to be reviewed, while other group members take notes and analyze them. Then, the review scope can be expanded to the entire class. This widens the review sources and further enhances the level of professionalism.[49]
With evolving and changing technology, peer review is also expected to evolve. New tools have the potential to transform the peer review process. Mimi Li discusses the effectiveness and feedback of an online peer review software used in their freshman writing class. Unlike traditional peer review methods commonly used in classrooms, the online peer review software offers a plethora of tools for editing articles, along with comprehensive guidance. For instance, it lists numerous questions peer reviewers can ask and allows for various comments to be added to the selected text. Based on observations over the course of a semester, students showed varying degrees of improvement in their writing skills and grades after using the online peer review software. Additionally, they highly praised the technology of online peer review.[50]