School of Information | College of Arts and Sciences | University of South Florida

SI Faculty member Dr. Alon Friedman receives National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant to study increasing the quality of peer review.

Dr. Friedman is the PI on an NSF grant Using Behavioral Nudges in Peer Review to Improve Critical Analysis in STEM Courses Peer reviews, in which students have the opportunity to analyze and evaluate projects made by their classroom peers, are a widely acknowledged pedagogical method for engaging students and have become a standard practice in undergraduate education. Peer review is most often used in classes with large number of students to provide timely feedback on student assignments. However, peer review has benefits far beyond scalability. Peer review gathers diverse feedback, raises students’ comfort level with having their work evaluated in a professional setting, and most importantly, the action of giving a peer review is often more valuable than receiving a peer review. This project plans to develop and study an innovative peer review system that uses behavioral nudges, a method of subtlety reinforcing positive habits, to improve the evaluation skills of students and the quality of the feedback they provide in peer reviews.

Using Behavioral Nudges in Peer Review to Improve Critical Analysis in STEM Courses