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

该项目旨在通过提高学生同行评议的质量为国家利益服务。同行评议，学生有机会分析和评估他们的课堂同伴所做的项目，是一个广泛认可的教学方法，让学生参与，并已成为本科教育的标准做法。同侪互评最常用于学生人数众多的班级，以便及时对学生的作业提供反馈。然而，同行评审的好处远远超出了可扩展性。同行评议收集不同的反馈，提高学生的舒适度，让他们的工作在专业环境中进行评估，最重要的是，给予同行评议的行动往往比接受同行评议更有价值。目前使用的支持同行评议的软件平台在近几十年来创新有限，提高学生成绩的潜在改进尚未得到彻底评估。该项目计划开发和研究一种创新的同行评审系统，该系统使用行为助推，一种微妙地加强积极习惯的方法，提高学生的评价技能和他们在同行评议中提供的反馈质量。本项目建议：1）创建一个支持同行评议的软件系统，其中包括指导同行评议过程的行为推动，以磨练学生的评价和批判性分析技能和2）研究如何使用行为助推提高学生的参与度。该方法将使用四种不同的可视化课程进行评估，每年为大约800名学生提供服务。将研究两组学生。控制组将使用同行评议，并提供额外的反馈方式，但不提供推动，而测试组将使用同行评议，并提供相同的反馈方式，但也包括推动。将使用常规统计检验（如ANOVA、t检验和相关性）来验证结果。由此产生的系统可以在利用不同STEM学科的同行评审的课程中提供显著和可衡量的成果改进。由此产生的技术将作为开放源代码传播，以便广泛采用。NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by increasing the quality of peer reviews given by students. 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. The software platforms in current use that support peer review have seen limited innovation in recent decades, and potential improvements to enhance student outcomes have not been thoroughly evaluated. 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.This project proposes to 1) create a software system supporting peer review that includes behavioral nudges for guiding the peer review process to hone students’ evaluation and critical analysis skills and 2) study how the use of behavioral nudges improves student engagement. The approach will be evaluated using four different visualization courses that serve approximately 800 students per year. Two groups of students will be studied. The control group will utilize peer review with additional feedback modalities but no nudges, while the test group will use peer review with the same feedback modalities but also include nudges. Common statistical tests such as, ANOVA, t-tests, and correlations, will be used to validate the results. The resulting system could provide a significant and measurable improvement in outcomes in courses that utilize peer review across different STEM disciplines. The resulting technologies will be disseminated as open source to enable widespread adoption. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.