<Research Papers>Prize as a Group Achievement: Incentivizing Accurate Peer Grading in MOOC

Abstract

Peer assessment is the most widely applicable method of assessing students' open-ended assignments in MOOC. However, one of the most glaring problems with this type of assessment is lack of credibility of the grades. This study took a novel approach by using prize as an incentive to improve peer grading accuracy among MOOC learners, analyzing peer grading agreement, time spent on grading, and learners' perception of the grades. The results indicated that although the Virtual Prize Group (VPG) mechanism did not have any effect on improving peer grading agreement, it encouraged peer graders to spend more time on the grading activity. Also, most learners expressed their overall satisfaction with their grades and perceived them as fair. Finally, we provide directions for future research on increasing the quality of peer assessment through implementing similar attempts such as the one introduced in this paper.