The effects of peer assessment on learner autonomy: An empirical study in a Chinese college English writing class

The study reports on a one-semester-long intervention study of peer assessment in a college English writing class. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of peer assessment on learner autonomy (LA). Seventy English major sophomores from an independent college in China participated in the study, who were randomly divided into two groups of 35 students each. Traditional teacher feedback was used in the control group while peer assessment was adopted for the experimental group. A questionnaire on LA was administered to both groups as the pre-test and the post-test. A number of ANCOVA analyses were run to measure the effects of peer assessment on students’ LA. The results indicate that peer assessment enhanced the students’ learner autonomy. Peer assessment significantly reduced learners’ dependence on the teacher and boosted the students’ confidence in learning ability, while failing to make noticeable improvement in the other aspects of LA.