The Impact of Face-To-Face Versus Online Peer Review on Students' Writing Achievement

This study examines the impact of type of peer review first year college students participated in, either face-to-face (F2F) or online (OL) and its effect on students' writing achievement. Using a two-way repeated measures design, this research measured students' overall writing score as well as the five key areas of writing: focus and meaning; content and development; organization; language use, voice and style; and mechanics and conventions. Since this design allows for a pre- and post-test of the participants, it was chosen to measure the treatment effect, comparing the type of peer review between groups and its overall impact on students’ final writing achievement. The results suggest that there was not a significant effect based on the format of the peer review (F2F vs. OL) in either students' overall score nor in the five key areas of writing. However, there was statistically significant growth in both overall writing achievement scores over time as well as in the five key areas of writing, indicating that regardless of peer review format, first-year writing students’ writing achievement can improve over the course of one semester.