The launch of the European Higher Education Area has placed the student in the central place of the learning process. This approach has emphasised the need to align assessment activities with learning outcomes (Biggs, 2003), hence the creation of continuous assessment systems where learning activities are converted into evaluation activities and evidence. In this context, and in the framework of continuous assessment (Black & Wiliam, 1998, Boud y Molloy, 2013), the last few years have marked a growing interest towards the processes of feedback. This means that the objective of learning is the development of the students’ capacity of self-criticism of their own work and the detection of areas which need to be strengthened, without relying on the teacher to act as external evaluator of the quality of the work produced and the products that each one carries out. As part of the constructivist approach of education, feedback is considered to be a key component of the learning and assessment activity for the reflective construction of knowledge. Among different types of procedures and methods, peer assessment, includes qualitative comments involving groups of students or peers, providing peer feedback. Peer -feedback is expected to support the learning process by providing an intermediate check of the performance against the criteria, accompanied by feedback on strengths, weaknesses and/or suggestions for improvement (Falchikov, 1996).

Among different types of feedback, peer-feedback appears as especially beneficial for the students’ learning. Peer-feedback is provided by equal status learners and can be regarded both as a form of formative assessment the counterpart of teacher feedback (Topping, 1998), and as a form of collaborative learning (Van Gennip, Segers, & Tillema, 2010; among others). Recent research conducted in the Catalonian universities also demonstrate that the proactive feedback called feedforward (Carless et al, 2006, Boud and Molloy, 2013) tend to be more useful in order to enhance students self-regulation and stimulate learning process (Ion, Silva and Cano, 2013).

The characteristics of a good written feedback have been analysed by the literature. For example, the proposal of Strijbos, Narciss & Dünnebier (2010) is focused on the type of writing (mostly syntactic and grammatical) which feedback should provide. In the same line, the proposal of Lilly et al (2010), is more generic and focuses on 3 aspects: content, style and clarity and so offers clues as to how feedback has to be with respect to these three axes.

The proposal of Nicol (2011) is even more generic or wide, for who written feedback should fulfil some formal characteristics regarding the way in which it is presented but also some characteristics which are much more general, with respect to the purpose, frequency, content, specificity of the feedback that is provided. Nicol proposes a type of feedback that is easy to understand, comprehensive, flexible, contextualised, among other characteristics.

As can be appreciated, some recurring aspects which improve the efficacy of feedback are: sufficient time should be allowed, that it should be specific (as demonstrated by Strijbos et al., 2010) and it must be positive and constructive (Shute, 2008). There are also recurring aspects with respect to format, clarity, specificity, precision and dimension.

The paper aims to analyse the feedback provided by peers in order to improve the self-regulation of students in the framework of an innovative experience based on the use of assignments in one subject in education field. The experience is implemented during the course 2014-2015 at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in social education and pedagogy bachelor degree. 

Biggs, J. (2003). Calidad del aprendizaje universitario. Cómo aprenden los estudiantes. Madrid: Narcea. Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 5, 7-74. Boud, D.; Molloy, E. (Eds.) (2013). Feedback in Higher and Professional Education: Undestanding it and doing it well. London: Routledge. Carless, D., Joughin, G. & Mok, M.M.C. (2006). Learning-oriented assessment: principles and practice. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(4), 395-398. Falchikov, N. (1996). Improving learning through critical peer feedback and reflection. Paper presented at the HERDSA Conference 1996: Different approaches: Theory and practice in Higher Education, Perth, Australia. Ion, G, Silva, P. & Cano, E. (2013) Feedback and feedforward in the assessment of students’ competences in higher education. Profesorado, 17, 2 , 283-301 Lilly, J., M. Richter, and B. Rivera-Macias (2010). Using feedback to promote learning: student and tutor perspectives. Practitioner Research in Higher Education 4, no. 1: 30–40. Nicol, D. (2007). Principles of good assessment and feedback: Theory and practice. REAP International Online Conference on Assessment Design for Learner Responsibility, 29th-31st May, 2007. Nicol, D. (2011). Good designs for written feedback for students. In McKeachie’s Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers, M. Svinicki and W.J McKeachie (Eds.), 13th Edition, Houghton Mifflin, New York. Shute, V. J. (2008). Focus on formative feedback. Review of Educational Research 78, no. 1: 153–189. Strijbos, J., S. Narciss, and K. Dünnebier (2010). Peer feedback content and sender’s competence level in academic writing revision tasks: Are they critical for feedback perceptions and efficiency? Learning and instruction 20, no. 4: 291–303. Topping, K. (1998). Peer assessment between students in colleges and universities. Review of Educational Research, 68, 249-276. Van Gennip, N. A. E., Segers, M. S. R., & Tillema, H. H. (2010). Peer assessment as a collaborative learning activity: the role of interpersonal variables and conceptions. Learning and Instruction, 20(4), 280-290.