Peer feedback is widely recognised as an effective practice in ESL writing, with research showing its potential to improve writing quality, learner engagement, and metacognitive awareness (Rollinson, 2005; Hattie & Timperley, 2007). More recent work highlights peer feedback as a key mechanism for developing evaluative judgement, understood as learners’ ability to make informed, criteria-based judgements about the quality of their own and others’ work (Tai et al., 2018; Usher, 2020). This capacity is increasingly seen as central to learner autonomy and lifelong learning and is strongly reflected in current European and international assessment reforms.

Despite this shift, classroom research continues to report persistent challenges in peer feedback practices. ESL learners often struggle to interpret assessment criteria independently, provide feedback beyond surface-level comments, and use peer input to make meaningful revision decisions (Xie et al., 2024). These difficulties appear across contexts but are especially visible in upper-secondary ESL classrooms, where genre-specific writing demands and high-stakes assessment pressures require students to apply criteria accurately and justify their decisions.

While collaborative and technology-supported peer feedback approaches have helped address some social barriers, collaboration is often treated as a general classroom condition rather than a structured cognitive process (Alshuraidah & Storch, 2019; Wood, 2021). In contrast, Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) frames peer feedback as a process of shared judgement-making and regulated decision-taking, focusing on how students interpret criteria, negotiate quality, and justify evaluative decisions.

This study examines whether CPS-adapted peer feedback supports the development of evaluative judgement more effectively than traditional checklist-based peer feedback in Grade 11 ESL writing classrooms. CPS is treated as a mediating process that requires students to make criteria explicit, justify feedback using rubric-based language, and decide how to act on peer input. These processes are supported through structured prompts and revision decision logs in which students explain whether feedback is accepted or rejected and why. By making these decisions visible, the study aims to clarify how CPS-based peer feedback supports evaluative judgement in practice.

The study addresses three research questions:
(1) To what extent does CPS-adapted peer feedback support evaluative judgement compared to checklist-based peer feedback?
(2) How does CPS-adapted peer feedback influence students’ ability to interpret criteria, justify feedback, and make purposeful revision decisions?
(3) How do students perceive their roles as feedback providers and decision-makers within CPS-adapted peer feedback?

The study draws on three interconnected theoretical perspectives. Evaluative judgement is viewed as a learnable capability developed through repeated engagement with criteria and decision-making (Tai et al., 2018; Usher, 2020). Black and Wiliam’s (2009) formative assessment framework positions learners as active agents in feedback processes, with justification and revision decisions treated as indicators of learning. CPS (Care & Griffin, 2014; OECD, 2017) provides the analytical lens, embedding participation, perspective taking, social regulation, task regulation, and knowledge building into structured peer feedback activities.

Aligned with European and international priorities on assessment quality and learner autonomy, the study offers insights relevant to multilingual upper-secondary classrooms operating under criterion-referenced and high-stakes assessment conditions.

The study adopts a classroom-based quasi-experimental action research design conducted with 138 Grade 11 students at NIS Shymkent-Karatau, a selective secondary school. All participants are preparing for the external summative assessment (ESA) at the end of May, which places the intervention within an authentic high-stakes assessment context. Participants were distributed across two intact classes, with Condition A (traditional checklist-based peer feedback) including 25 students and Condition B (CPS-adapted peer feedback) including 113 students. The study is conducted collaboratively by five ESL teachers at NIS Shymkent-Karatau, who jointly plan, implement, and reflect on the peer feedback intervention as part of ongoing classroom practice. One participating ESL teacher is from a private secondary school in Aktau, contributing an additional comparative professional perspective without introducing a separate student sample. Two intact classes participated in a genre-based essay-writing unit and were assigned to different peer feedback conditions. Baseline writing proficiency and evaluative judgement indicators were collected prior to the intervention to establish group comparability. Condition A employed traditional checklist-based peer feedback, while Condition B implemented a CPS-adapted peer feedback model structured around the five CPS strands. Class-level assignment was used due to timetabling constraints, and baseline measures were therefore used to statistically control for pre-existing differences between the groups. Students in the CPS-adapted condition received explicit training through modelling, guided practice, and calibration activities to support consistent interpretation of assessment criteria and feedback justification practices. Peer feedback was implemented in two feedback cycles, both focused on a single essay genre aligned with ESA requirements. This design allows students to apply, reflect on, and refine evaluative judgements within a stable genre context. Data sources included writing artefacts, peer feedback artefacts, revision decision logs, surveys, and reflective responses, enabling methodological triangulation. Each feedback cycle generated a complete set of peer comments and revision decision logs, allowing comparison of changes in feedback justification quality and revision decision-making across the two cycles. Quantitative analysis focuses on changes in evaluative judgement indicators and writing outcomes, with statistical controls applied where baseline differences are identified. Given the unequal group sizes, analyses will employ ANCOVA or equivalent regression-based models, using baseline writing proficiency and baseline evaluative judgement indicators as covariates. Qualitative analysis employs thematic coding, using CPS strands as sensitising categories. To enhance analytical transparency and reliability, a subset of artefacts will be double-coded by a second researcher, with discrepancies discussed to refine the coding scheme.

The study is expected to show that CPS-adapted peer feedback supports a stronger development of evaluative judgement in Grade 11 ESL writing than traditional checklist-based peer feedback. Students who take part in structured collaborative problem solving are likely to demonstrate clearer understanding of assessment criteria, more accurate justification of feedback, and more purposeful decisions when revising their writing. Beyond improvements in writing quality, the findings are expected to point to a shift from rule-following peer review to more agentic evaluative behaviour. This change is expected to be visible in students’ revision decision logs, where feedback is accepted or rejected with clear reasons, in more frequent use of rubric-aligned justification language across the two feedback cycles, and in increased confidence reported by students in surveys and reflective responses. At a theoretical level, the study contributes by showing how evaluative judgement can be observed and analysed through CPS-aligned classroom practices, rather than treated as an abstract outcome. At a pedagogical level, it proposes a practical, classroom-based model of formative peer assessment that aligns with European and international assessment priorities. Several limitations are acknowledged. The study uses intact classes without random assignment, is conducted in a selective school under high-stakes ESA conditions, and is limited in duration. These factors restrict strong causal claims and limit immediate transferability to lower-stakes or non-selective contexts. Future research should therefore examine the model over longer periods, across different writing genres, and in a wider range of school settings.

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