50+ Sample Peer Evaluation Forms

What Is a Peer Evaluation Form?

A peer evaluation form is an official document used to assess students, workers, or colleagues in general about their performance. And it is an effective strategy to help one another in identifying strengths and weaknesses, analyzing data, and solving problems. Expect the form to have a set of criteria on how to rate your peers, including a space for notes and feedback. And with every judgment made, each person will learn responsibly through cooperative learning as it is not solely for giving critiques.

According to the University of Reading, students were said to be more productive and responsive from the feedback or evaluation they receive from their peers rather than the critiques from teachers.

Why Are Peer Evaluation Forms Needed?

A peer evaluation form is important since it helps improve both amateurs and professionals alike. The results written in the evaluation form are meant to bring awareness of how a person is currently doing, may it be good or bad. And learning from those results and enhancing one’s performance will follow afterward. Thus, it maintains quality standards since it is for the sake of advancement. Without peer evaluation forms, that would mean you miss the opportunity of measuring and monitoring everyone’s productivity, skills, and performance.

Evaluation forms are also essential to many applications. A common function is to use peer evaluation forms for students to rate one another in school. In fact, It is said that students are more productive and responsive from an evaluation or feedback they got from their peers compared to the critiques from their teachers. More so, you can apply a peer evaluation form in the workplace. That works when an employee is rated by his or her co-worker about doing the job. Nonetheless, this form covers evaluation to all sorts of activities and in various settings.

What Are the Advantages of a Peer Evaluation Form?

Since a peer evaluation form is important, it only makes sense that it involves a variety of benefits too. But what exactly are they? In this section, you will learn about the common advantages acquired from using peer evaluation forms.

Continuous Learning: Of course, peer evaluation forms give rise to continuous learning sessions. With rating scales and comments given to peers, learnings are acquired. That goes from discovering a person’s strengths, weaknesses, and so much more. Applying SWOT analysis to the evaluations given will bring an advantage for sure.Owning and Fixing Mistakes: One of the challenges in being evaluated is to hear your weaknesses and errors. But those are not a reason for you to be ashamed. Instead, you get to own your mistakes and learn how to fix them eventually, thanks to peer assessments. The process ultimately helps you to take account of your mistakes so you will become better at whatever you are doing in the end.Exchange of Ideas: What makes peer evaluations fun is the process of exchanging ideas. Everyone will have his or her knowledge enhanced because of engagement. For example, students might be hesitant to respond to their teachers because of the barrier in their level of superiority. But if classmates rate each other, they are likely more comfortable to talk and evaluate since they are of similar level.Constructive Feedback: Another advantage of peer assessment is offering constructive feedback. Indeed, some might be too harsh in giving critiques. But that is not the point of the evaluation process. People will learn to be mature enough in accepting feedback. You can’t expect good comments all the time anyway. Constructive feedback will pave way for a better learning experience.Administrator’s Convenience: Besides the ones being evaluated, the administrator, employer, teacher, or leader also gets the benefit. Since peers are evaluating each other, the administrator needs not to evaluate alone. Colleagues are given a chance to rate one another so at least administrators can rest and observe how those peers work in assessing instead.

The Basic Parts of a Peer Evaluation Form

Indeed, peer evaluation forms are advantageous for observing group work and a collaborative assessment. But, it might not work as expected if the evaluation form used is faulty in the first place. Generally, peer evaluation forms would consist of the following parts:

Title: A document can be any type of document without a clear title. Hence, the document should be entitled ‘Peer Evaluation Form’ to form a proper introductory statement of what the form’s purpose is.Evaluator’s Name: It is crucial to identify who is evaluating in the first place. But in some cases, leaving the evaluator’s name to be anonymous is acceptable. Nevertheless, inputting the evaluator’s name is standard to be clear on who is the evaluator or responsible for the comments written in the form.Subject to Evaluate: You cannot forget about who is the subject being evaluated. Specify the name of the peer to evaluate; otherwise, the comments written in the document may be directed to anybody. It does not have to be too detailed by including the address, contact number, or job position as long as there is clear identification on who is being evaluated.Criteria: Another essential part of the peer evaluation form is the criteria. It works just like survey questionnaires where there are questions and a set of criteria on how to assess subjects. And that will be your guide in handling the evaluation.Rating Scale: Of course, the criteria would not be complete without a rating scale beside it. This part is where you write your scores and answers to the different categories of the criteria. The common approach is to do the Likert scale but you can also use other examples that are relevant to peer evaluations.Notes: Additional comments, feedback, and answers fall under the notes section. Maybe an evaluator has other comments to add to make the evaluation more effective. Hence, the notes section is used for that purpose.

How to Make a Peer Evaluation Form

You can certainly ace peer assessments if you master making the peer evaluation form. Use the document as a reference on how peers can assess each other during evaluations. And you can come up with the said form by following these five easy steps:

Step 1: Tailor the Form According to Its Purpose

There is no single format to a peer evaluation for all functions. Hence, peer evaluation forms have to be personalized where the content, criteria, and other details are relevant to its purpose. For example, it would be unfit to use a peer evaluation form meant for evaluating a job performance to a student essay assessment. Relevance is key. And if you really know your purpose for making the form, rest assured, you will know how to tailor your form’s data.

Step 2: Prepare the Criteria

The criteria, questions, and other factors used to evaluate are the meat of a peer evaluation form. Hence, you should come up with relevant and smart criteria that work appropriately for your purpose. For example, you assess a student’s reporting session according to leadership skills, teamwork, visual presentation, audience impact, delivery of speech, and mastery of assignment. Those are a few examples of what to include for the criteria for judging. And of course, the rating system follows right after it.

Step 3: Use a Sample Peer Evaluation Form

A quick way for you to formulate peer evaluation forms is to use the sample templates listed above this article. Each sample peer evaluation form is ready for editing, downloading, and printing—promising you to produce the best peer evaluation forms shortly. Don’t forget to finalize the format of the document, how much data it should carry, etc. And the best part is you won’t have one option to use since there are 50+ sample peer evaluation form templates available for download.

Step 4: Complete the Parts of the Form

Complete your peer evaluation form by adding its essential parts one by one. You already know its structure, as previously discussed, starting from the title down to the notes section. You can even insert more categories to make the document more detailed. Remember that if some parts are missing, evaluations might run ineffectively. For example, an evaluator might be confused about what to write in the form if there is no criterion at all for what to judge or even who to judge.

Step 5: Observe an Easy-to-Use Structure

The last thing you want to commit is creating a hard-to-follow peer evaluation form. It will only complicate the process of peer assessments, which aren’t supposed to be that difficult. Hence, review if colleagues would find the document to be user-friendly. Maybe additional instructions are needed to be a lot easier. Or perhaps, the words should be more straightforward if some bits are hard to understand. Go for whatever strategic plan you can think of to improve the form before you actually produce it.

FAQs

What are the types of peer evaluation?

Peer evaluation is generally divided into two types. These are the formative and the summative peer evaluation. Formative evaluations focus on monitoring how people learn and giving feedback right after. Meanwhile, summative evaluation assesses how people learn in the end and compare them to the standards or desired milestones.

What are some tips to evaluate during peer evaluation?

On the evaluator’s side, you can ace peer evaluations by observing the following:

  • Be objective and don’t be biased just because your peers are your friends.
  • Always support your evaluations with explanation and data for proof.
  • Do not rush in evaluating or you might get wrong or miss important details.
  • Focus on constructive feedback rather than just being too negative in evaluating.

Is a peer evaluation effective?

Peer evaluations are certainly effective if managed right. Remember that just because you can make a proper peer evaluation form, it doesn’t guarantee you success if things go wrong in the execution process. It can just be what implements teambuilding and collaborative learning. So be sure to set a proper plan in managing the evaluation itself too.

Without peer evaluation forms, the students, employees, and colleagues might lack exposure to evaluating, making them inferior in terms of judging and assessing subjects. Thus, it is crucial for administrators and those of high authority to give a chance for peers to evaluate one another and let them learn how a collaborative evaluation via group project works. And that is just one of the many things a peer evaluation form can promise you. Download now!