IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SUMMARY WRITING SKILLS THROUGH PEER AND SELF-ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES: DOES GENDER MATTER IN CROSSASSESSMENT LEARNING?

Abstract

Efforts have been underway to improve students’ summary writing skills. Crossassessment
learning involving peer and self-assessment as formative assessment
techniques have shown promising results. However, it was not clear if leaner’ gender
could predispose them from benefiting more or less from these assessment techniques
in teaching and learning of summary writing. To this end, the present study examined
the effect of peer and self-assessment techniques, moderated by gender, on students’
achievement in summary writing. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design.
Using a multi-stage sampling technique, 207 Senior Secondary II students (98 male and
109 female) in six intact classes were recruited for the study. Data were collected at
pre-test and post-test using an adopted summary passage titled "Summary
Achievement Test in English Language (SATEL)". Data were analyzed using mean,
standard deviation and analysis of covariance. It was found that although peer and selfassessment
techniques improved students’ summary skills more than conventional
teacher assessment technique, students’ gender did not influence the impact of the
assessment techniques. Both male and female students showed comparable
achievement in both peer and self-assessment groups. It was therefore recommended
that language education teachers be encouraged to improve their classroom practice by
incorporating self- and/or peer assessment in their daily lesson plans, especially in
summary writing classes. This is because, apart from ensuring higher achievement
compared to the teacher assessment, both male are and female students tend to
benefit maximally as well; no gender group is less privileged when peer and selfassessment
are used in teaching and learning in summary writing classes.

Keywords: peer assessment; self-assessment, summary writing; achievement; gender.