The use of peer assessment at a time of massification: Lecturers’ perceptions in a teacher education institution

The massification of higher education in South Africa comes with a demand for innovative ways of assessing students. Peer assessment is one of the approaches that is too rarely used in higher education. The paper explores lecturers’ use of peer assessment at a teacher education institution. In-depth semi-structured interview conversations were used to generate data and we adopted scaffolding as a theoretical lens. The sample comprised of nine lecturers employed in a teacher education institution. We found that the majority of the participants use peer assessment although it varies across disciplines and the students’ level of study. Also, the findings indicated limited use of e-learning-assessment tools. Participants perceived peer assessment as significant towards improving students’ content knowledge while they acquire assessment skills and ethics as future teachers. This work is emerging in the context of South Africa and more research is required to broaden the phenomenon in teacher education