Learners’ Perceptions of Peer Assessment

In the past two decades, several researchers have expressed their concern regarding students’ attitudes towards writing (Hyland, 2018). To address the effects of peer assessment (PA) on 100 young intermediate EFL learners’ writing performance, this study examined whether the use of anonymous reciprocal PA in 4 public secondary schools in Cyprus would result in considerable improvement in students’ motivation towards PA of writing and their willingness to write. The analysis of the data from the pre-PA questionnaires indicated that students’ attitudes were positive before experimenting with PA but improved even more after the implementation. This was also confirmed by the focus group discussions in which shortcomings of PA were also highlighted. Students expressed their wish to use multiple forms of assessment, receive more training and increase their exposure to PA. All in all, students’ positive attitude towards PA seemed to have affected their writing performance and vice versa.