Receiving feedback from peers: medical students' perceptions

During peer assessment activities, students are often required to provide feedback to their peers. The quality of such feedback can be perceived by recipients to be superior, and better received, than feedback given by academic staff. The aim of this study was to investigate students' views on receiving verbal feedback from their peers during their formative long case examination.

During 2013, year-4 students (n = 48) were assessed on their formative long case presentation and discussion by a student examiner, alongside an academic co-examiner. The student examinee was then provided with verbal feedback by both the student examiner and the academic co-examiner. To gain insight into students' views on receiving feedback from their peers, two focus groups were held. Students are often required to provide feedback to their peers

Of the 48 participants, 35 per cent (17/48) attended focus groups. Students did not like receiving peer feedback during the scheduled examination time, in the presence of the academic co-examiner. They did value peer feedback, but preferred to receive this in a relaxed environment, after the examination.

In the formative examination, students perceived the feedback given by their peer co-examiner to be less constructive, less accurate and less helpful than the feedback given by the academic co-examiner. These findings may have implications for the feedback process for future iterations of the formative long case examination.