Previous research has already stressed the main benefits of peer-assessment practices. Peer assessment is understood as that student organisation in which the “amount, level, value, relevance, quality or success of the products or outcomes of learning of a peer of similar status” (Topping, 1998, p.250). Peer-assessment is a key strategy to foster evaluative judgement, which is understood as "the capability to make decisions about the quality of work of oneself and others, is necessary not just in a students' current course but for learning through life" (Tai, Ajjawi, Boud, Dawson & Panadero, 2018, p. 1). Evaluative judgement has two components: (1) Understanding what constitutes quality and (2) Applying this understanding through an appraisal of work. Peer-assessment is a key strategy to foster students’ evaluative judgement because it enables to assess the quality of another’s work at the same time that offers the opportunity to engage with assessment criteria and rethink the aim of the assignment.

Peer-assessment also contributes to foster students’ evaluative judgement because this process allows students to understand the assessment criteria, and to provide quality comments and suggestions to improve the learning process (Carless & Boud, 2018). Peer assessment is, therefore, useful to foster assessment criteria engagement. However, to get the full potential of peer-assessment practices, students need to know and understand the assessment criteria in order to plan, monitor and evaluate their action (Butler & Winne, 1995). Assessing the work of a peer implies rethinking and reflecting on the assessment criteria and the concept of quality, as well as analysing how the peer has considered and applied the assessment criteria during the process of developing the assignment. This process of reflection and revision involves rethinking the application of these criteria in the task itself.

Simpson and Clifton (2016) stressed the relevance of having an active role in feedback provision. Previous studies indicate that it is equally important to receive feedback from a peer than to provide it. Students tend to value the feedback they give more positively than the one they receive. According to Nicol, Thomson and Breslin (2014), the feedback students receive contributes to improve the task, whereas providing feedback helps students to develop the critical thinking, which is one of the main abilities to be fostered in Higher Education.

Despite these benefits, students do not always perceive the positive effects of peer-assessment practice. Poulos and Mahony (2008) inquired students' perceptions of what effective feedback is. They found that students do not have a homogeneous view of what effective feedback is. However, according to Hattie and Timperley (2007), effective feedback is that focused on the process with a self-regulatory nature. In this line, Mulliner and Tucker (2017) analysed the differences in perception between students and teachers. While students prefer oral feedback, teachers prefer written feedback. Huisman et al (2018) also studied the tasks’ improvements based on the feedback received and students' perception. For all this, this contribution aims to analyse what aspect of peer-assessment practices contribute to develop learning to learn competence according to higher education students.

This contribution is part of a larger study, implemented at the University of XXX during the academic years 2019-2021, which aimed to examine the effect of peer-assessment on pre-service teachers’ learning to learn competence. A peer-assessment practice was designed and applied in pre-service teacher education with first and second-year students enrolled in a compulsory course, which lasted one semester. Each course had 60 pre-service teachers enrolled. For most of them, it was not the first time participating in a peer-assessment practice. The experience was developed following the steps to foster self-regulated learning through peer-assessment stated by Panadero, Jonsson and Strijbos (2016). Students had to peer-assess two different versions of a complex task providing qualitative comments for each assessment criterion (see Image 1). Different strategies were planned in order to help students to engage with assessment criteria. The feedback provided had to meet the characteristics of feedback quality. Students had to reflect on the feedback received and state how they had integrated it within a week-time. Concurrently, teachers assessed the feedback provided to peers and the final version of the task. Image 1: Learning and feedback experience Different instruments were used in order to explore the impact of peer-assessment on pre-service teachers’ learning to learn competence, such as Pintrich’s (1991) questionnaire as a pre- and post-test, the satisfaction and learning perception questionnaire and a feedback analysis guide. For the purpose of this study, the results from the satisfaction and learning perception questionnaire are analysed. This questionnaire had some closed and open-ended questions. This instrument was administered at the end of the semester after the experience had finished. To answer the research aim that drives this contribution, the open ended question what factors have fostered your learning to learn competence? is analysed qualitatively. The data is analysed following the constant comparative model from Glaser and Strauss (1967). The codes were created inductively by the constant comparison of ideas. These codes were grouped into wider categories, which were contrasted with the theoretical framework. Three main categories were identified: 1) factors related to the feedback received; 2) factors related to the feedback provided; 3) Other factors. Each of these categories include some subcategories and codes.

Students participating in this experience consider that peer-assessment contributes to the development of learning to learn competence. However, as previous studies indicate (Nicol, Thompson & Breslin, 2014), students think that providing and receiving feedback have a different impact on their learning to learn competence. As for the factors related to receiving feedback, students mainly stress two factors: first, receiving feedback allows them to improve the task and identify those aspects that need to be improved. Second, the likelihood of students using the feedback to improve the task will depend on the type of feedback provided. That is, students believe that feedback is more useful if it provides specific suggestions and orientations. Hattie and Timperley (2007) already stressed that the feedback with a self-regulated orientation had a greater impact on students learning. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that providing feedback to a peer offers a good scenario to foster the learning to learn competence. According to the findings, peer-feedback allows students to engage with feedback. This better understanding helps participants to apply them better when they develop their task and self-assess it. Additionally, peer-assessing another assignment offers the opportunity to reflect on what ‘quality’ means for that specific assignment and, therefore, fosters students’ evaluative judgement (Tai et al., 2018). Additionally, students believe that providing feedback not only fosters their evaluative judgement, but also their assessment literacy; that is, their value the feedback processes and engage with feedback, which are two important conditions to enhance self-regulated learning (Butler and Winne, 1995) and learning to learn competence. Therefore, it seems that students participating in this experience value peer-assessment processes and highlight some of the factors that contribute to their learning to learn competence.

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