Analysis of New Zealand primary and secondary student peer- and self-assessment comments: applying Hattie and Timperley’s feedback model

Peer- and self-assessment (PASA) can lead to increased student self-regulation and achievement. However, few studies have examined the content of the feedback students in primary and secondary schools provide themselves and their peers. This study used Hattie and Timperley’s task, process, self-regulation and self feedback categories from their Review of Educational Research article ‘The power of feedback’ to (1) examine the content of a sample of naturally occurring student-written PASA comments (n = 471 utterances) and (2) explore the feasibility of using this model with student-generated feedback. Students provided primarily task feedback to both themselves and their peers, with self-regulation feedback only found in self-assessment. Students in higher grades tended to provide more task and process feedback, while giving less self feedback during self-assessment and more during peer assessment. More refinement of the model is recommended for both research and professional development purposes to better capture the quality and complexity of student-led feedback comments.