5.1. Publication Trends
A possible reason that publications about peer assessment in online language courses have seen a sharp increase around 2019 is the urgent need for distance education triggered by COVID-19 (
Adedoyin and Soykan 2020), which requires active interdisciplinary research. In order to provide a more comprehensive understanding, researchers resort to perspectives of multiple research domains, such as psychology in education, cultural studies, and technological advancements. The integration of research domains and subjects also contributes to the formation of the interdisciplinary trend of peer assessment in online language education. Introducing theories and approaches in multiple research areas into language education research produces diversified focuses on peer assessment in online language courses. As found in the most used keywords, researchers referred to peer assessment as a collaborative learning strategy with slightly different terms. This demonstrates different pedagogical purposes in actual teaching practice. As
Stovner and Klette (
2022) suggested, assessment and evaluation are distinguished from feedback in that the former terms tend to be summative, while the latter is a formative approach to learning. Students can improve their further learning based on instructive and evaluative information in peer feedback, while assessment primarily emphasizes grading outcomes than constructive guidance. Such a distinction can explain why other terms are used in line with “assessment”.
Higher education is a top-used keyword, while other educational levels are less investigated. This is probably because higher education contexts allow more flexible and diversified teaching designs or even teaching experiments. Higher education involves more diversified but specialized learning contents, where instructors actively seek effective methods to deliver learning contents to their students. Additionally, students’ expertise is relatively limited before higher education levels, so they may not evaluate their peer performances from a comprehensive perspective of particular subjects. When faced with difficulties in academic contexts, higher education students can rely on more experience in exploring how to provide proper suggestions on improvements for their peer students. Similarly, based on academic expectations and experiences, higher-education students have stronger abilities to explore expertise in their subjects and think critically and independently than students under the higher education level. Peer assessment in higher education finds a balance between using its advantages and minimizing the risk caused by students’ limited expertise. The challenges and the benefits exist simultaneously, while overemphasizing the risk may prevent peer assessment from wide application and further development in higher education (
Ashenafi 2017). The solutions to some concerns are being provided by the updated and emerging technologies in recent years.
On the global scale, the shared research interest in language education encourages researchers to investigate peer assessment in online language courses, whether the studies be conducted in English- or non-English-speaking countries. English-speaking countries outnumber non-English-speaking countries in terms of publications probably because the literature search is based on English publications. It is reasonable to assume that researchers in various countries across the globe are devoted to localizing educational technologies in online teaching and learning their local languages. For English publications, studies on peer assessment in online language courses are not restricted to English-as-first-language contexts. They also include foreign language and second language teaching (see
Ge 2022 as an example of the Chinese EFL learning context). Peer assessment in teaching languages other than English online can also be found (
Tsunemoto et al. 2022). The enhanced learning effectiveness and benefits of peer assessment in online language education are supported by evidence from search results around the globe.
The clustering of the literature demonstrates a preference for studies on writing over other linguistic skills. This research trend may result from more convenient and practical attempts to implement peer assessment in online writing tasks than other language skills. First, comments on writing are clear and efficient, while it requires much more time to review peer performances in other forms, let alone the reviewers providing efficient comments and the receivers’ understanding. For instance, performances in videos and spoken tasks are not as straightforward as written tasks regarding review and evaluation. Time is critical in implementing self-assessment and peer-assessment activities (
Siow 2015). The time-consuming nature, with presumably limited accuracy, prevents students from accepting peer assessment and teachers from considering peer assessment activities. Therefore, the required time for peer assessment and the convenience of providing peer suggestions for improving language skills may be an important element in explaining the existing preference for investigating peer assessment in online writing courses. Second, broader and higher-level knowledge is required to identify problems in performances other than general writing tasks, including academic writing, thinking, learning strategies, oral presentation, and communication, and provide practical solutions to improvements (
Zhang et al. 2021;
Shek et al. 2021). In contrast, writing tasks for general purposes allow peer students to provide their understanding and suggestions even if the reviewers still need to develop their expertise in writing. The relatively common requirements can enhance the acceptance and usefulness of peer assessment activities.
5.2. Theoretical Advancements
According to
Vygotsky and Cole (
1978), students can easily learn what they can achieve under suitable guidance to their current levels of cognition and knowledge, which explains the importance of peer support. Consequently, peer students with similar levels of knowledge and cognitive competence are the best sources of such guidance. This explains why peer assessment could be originated from his theory. Between his original theories and the current studies, a group of common citations identified in the above section delineate critical issues related to peer assessment: Engaging students in online peer assessment is an essential challenge and research topic; the roles of students who provide and receive peer assessment can be the key to the challenge (
Gielen and De Wever 2015). Comparison between self-assessment, peer assessment, and expert assessment is a way to understand the unique advantages of peer assessment (
Liang and Tsai 2010;
Paré and Joordens 2008;
Trautmann 2009). Peer assessment in online language courses shows advantages over traditional formats. In this sense, findings by comparison of online module-based and traditional paper-based peer feedback are significant in technology-assisted educational contexts (
Mostert and Snowball 2013). Different peer assessment designs can also help to explore the enhanced approaches to successful peer assessment (
Xiao and Lucking 2008). How peer feedback can succeed in terms of its quality is also a meaningful topic. High-quality, engaging, elaborated, and justified peer feedback leads to better writing outcomes (
Noroozi et al. 2016).
The findings of the citation network analysis have led to the above critical research issues in the existing literature. Current studies are still interested in peer assessment in online language courses and widely cite findings about student engagement, unique advantages, enhanced designs, and critical factors for success. These may largely explain the citations used in the most recent studies about writing (
Hoffman (
2019);
Lin (
2019); more specifically, argumentative writing and learning in
Latifi et al. (
2021);
Nicolini and Cole (
2019);
Noroozi and Hatami (
2019);
Noroozi et al. (
2020)). The most recent studies are based on the identified common citations, since they have pointed out the above specific research directions and topics in this area.
5.3. Integration of Educational Technologies and Interdisciplinary Trends
The increasing use of educational technologies and the interdisciplinary research trends have been consistent with the influences of Web 2.0 on collaborative learning since around 2005 (
Hegelheimer and Lee 2013). Following internet technologies, portable and function-specific technologies have emerged in the past two decades. This encourages peer assessment in online language courses to involve multiple educational technologies, with close investigations of recent studies published in 2021 and 2022 on the rapid updates and developments of educational technologies, as listed by Haleem et al. in 2022. The diversified educational technologies integrated into peer assessment are also consistent with previous reviews and meta-analyses regarding technology-assisted language learning (
Burston and Giannakou 2022). As a learning and teaching strategy, peer assessment can now be realized by various technologies and can enhance multi-faceted language skill acquisition and linguistic knowledge in specific aspects.
Interdisciplinary trends in this area can explain why many most-used keywords belong to subjects outside language studies: studies combine peer assessment in online language courses and hot issues in psychology, including keyword items such as efficacy, engagement, perception, and motivation (see
Table 3 and
Figure 2). Similarly, one publication can be classified into multiple categories (see
Table 1). Consequently, the percentages of the top publication categories amount to over 100 percent due to multiple counts for the same publication in different categories. Studies on peer assessment in online language courses now involve multiple subjects and research areas. By comparing the predominant technologies and those applied to peer assessment in online language courses, factors such as instructors’ technology literacy, support from policies and regulations, and the effectiveness of different technologies can impact the actual application of peer assessment in online language courses. The acceptance of educational technologies has been another popular research topic, especially with the wide adoption of structural equation modeling (
Zhang and Yu 2022). An increasing number of factors are being included in explaining this mechanism whereby particular educational technologies can be accepted by learners and instructors and adopted in teaching practice.
Based on recent investigations on educational technologies and interdisciplinary research trends, the integration of educational technologies into peer assessment in online language courses should at least consider the following aspects. First, functional characteristics of technologies (such as interactivity, the timing and pacing of the learning process, and simulated or immersive experience) would determine whether students will significantly benefit from technology applications to particular learning contents. When the characteristics of the learning contents can be enhanced by the advantages of the educational technologies, the matched technologies and contents will more likely promote students’ learning outcomes. For example, demonstration through video feedback may be more useful than other technologies for skill learning where simulation and visual aids matter (
Shek et al. 2021).
Second, diversifying designs and updating features of the existing educational technologies may provide solutions to previous limitations, which requires the instructors to stay on pace with the advancements of educational technology developments. Some educational technologies still need validation through practical experience of peer assessment applications in online contexts. Through comparing the most recent studies and a broader framework of educational technologies proposed by Hallem et al. in 2022, the enhanced effectiveness of peer assessment has been well established for technologies in online language education, such as mobile applications (
Chang and Lin 2020) and web-based learning communities (
Lai et al. 2019). However, with the unbalanced attention attached to different technologies, some may need greater attention in order to reveal their usefulness in peer assessment in online language courses. As an emerging technology, artificial intelligence chatbots have recently been introduced into language education, though their effectiveness remains controversial (
Huang et al. 2022). Learning analytics has received keen interest and helped understand students’ perceptions of peer assessment (
Misiejuk et al. 2021), but only limited literature can be found. For less-investigated technologies, instructors may need to consider the features and functions of the technologies, i.e., compare how characteristics of particular educational technologies fit the teaching contents of the targeted language skills.
Third, according to studies on the influencing factors in subjects outside language education and linguistics, instructors should consider psychological, social, cultural, gender-related, and other factors. Educational technologies can demonstrate varying effects for different participants (
Yu et al. 2022a,
2022b). This principle, that multi-faceted factors should be investigated and considered, is consistent with some existing studies that aimed to provide an understanding of influencing factors on online learning. For example,
Yu et al. (
2022a) identified influencing psychological factors on MOOCs, including learning engagement, students’ motivation, perceptions, and satisfaction. Wu and Yu explored achievement emotions in online learning (
Wu and Yu 2022). Learning strategy can be diversified in mobile English learning (
Yu et al. 2022b), and it may also be a critical factor in peer assessment in online language earning. Such interdisciplinary studies evaluating technology-enhanced education provide an understanding of the influencing factors in educational technologies. According to these studies, solutions may be found to diversify the application of educational technologies to online language courses and enhance the effectiveness of online peer assessment.