Incorporating face-to-face peer feedback in a group project setting

• Feedback in the workplace often produces less than optimal results.
• Professionals deliver and receive feedback early in their careers.
• We provide a strategy that allows students to practice face-to-face feedback.
• With practice, students improve their ability to deliver and receive feedback.

We present a teaching strategy in which students provide fellow group project members with face-to-face feedback on their performance over the course of the project. The first step in the strategy is a classroom session covering important elements of the feedback process. Student groups then meet for two face-to-face feedback sessions; the first session occurs midway through the project and the second session occurs after the group has completed the project. Both sessions provide students the opportunity to deliver and receive feedback. Students who take part in this process gain valuable experience that they can apply throughout their professional careers. While we incorporate this strategy into our Master of Accounting Science program, the ideas and teaching strategies are transferable to upper-division and masters-level accounting courses. The process can also be adapted to settings where less time is available. Our goal is to provide educators with information and ideas that will enable them to implement similar strategies in their own courses.