Comparison of Online and Face-to-Face Peer Review of Writing

Peer response has been shown to be an effective strategy for improving writing. The social nature of collaboration as peers give and receive feedback can broaden perspectives about audience and what good writing is and also help motivate writers to revise their work. This study is not designed to show impact of peer review on writing products, as this has been well documented in the research literature. Rather, it is a qualitative study comparing the processes of face-to-face (f2f) and online peer response in terms of strengths, limitations, similarities and differences. Traditionally, writing groups conduct peer response in a f2f, synchronous environment, but questions about the feasibility of using an online environment as another space where peer response and review could take place are central to this research study and acted as both catalyst and structure for the inquiry. We examined the attitudes and experiences of adult students, who are K-12 teachers across disciplines, using both a f2f environment and an online environment, as well as their experiences in being peer reviewers of the writing of others in these two contexts. This study suggests that literacy instructors who have been reluctant to teach online may find an entrée into online teaching by starting with peer response groups, as this study indicates that most rules and processes are parallel for online and f2f groups. In both environments, teaching writers the rules for response and training them seem necessary. Those instructors who embrace a process approach, where f2f groups are a vital component, may find some advantages to having some response conducted online. Overall, the results of this study show that the power of using different environments for peer review exists not in duplicating and imitating traditional methods, but in recognizing and understanding that f2f and online environments function in different ways to support peer review of writing.