The peer feedback in a blended university course: construction of an encoding scheme

Peer feedback is understood in scholarly literature as an interactive and sequential process that can support learning. The aim of the present study was to construct a coding scheme to analyze peer feedback in a blended university course. Participants comprised eleven students (9F and 2M) and the course lecturer at the University of Neuchatel (CH). In each of the forums provided in the Moodle environment, the students worked in groups to complete the project elements in successive phases, receiving feedback from the other students and the lecturer for each element. The categories of the coding scheme (Positive Aspects, Negative Aspects, Questions, Improvements, Others) were applied by two independent judges on 41 segments identified in 19 feedback messages provided by students in the forums. Results showed that the coding scheme has a high degree of reliability in the identification of the analysis unit in each message (Index of agreement equal to .97), and in the application of the categories to the content of the unit of analysis (Index of agreement equal to 90%, with Cohen's K = .87). The possible uses of the tool are discussed.