Effects of Small-Group Peer Interaction on Self-Evaluation of Music Performance

Abstract

Research has shown that undergraduate students' self-evaluation of performance correlates poorly with instructor and peer evaluation. This article reports two exploratory investigations into the development of a treatment condition for improving performance self-evaluation. The condition consisted of small groups of peers informally discussing performances and sharing feedback with one another. The first investigation resulted in a statistically significant difference between experimental and control groups in ability to self-evaluate, although the effect size was small. With a second investigation, we pursued a modified version of the treatment emphasizing changes over time in ability to self-evaluate. In the second investigation, we also examined different effects of this modified treatment condition on students whose initial attempt to self-evaluate was either accurate or inaccurate. The second investigation did not result in significant differences between treatment and control groups; however, a significant interaction between time (self-evaluation across five small-group peer-interaction sessions) and initial ability to self-evaluate accurately was noted. A prompt improvement was found with performers whose initial ability to self-evaluate accurately was poor, although the effect tended to fade over time. Consistent with prior research, self-evaluation did not correlate highly with instructor evaluation. Also consistent with prior research, peer evaluation was higher than instructor evaluation. Correlations between instructor evaluation and peer evaluation declined over the five sessions. Self-evaluation scores increased over time, moving away from instructor evaluation scores and toward the higher peer-evaluation scores.