Creating dialogic spaces: developing doctoral students' critical writing skills through peer assessment and review

This paper reports on a project in which part-time doctoral researchers were engaged in a

process of peer assessment and review, with a view to improving their critical writing skills.

Our aim was to support the development of students’ critical writing skills by involving them

in giving and receiving formative, peer feedback over a sustained period. The intervention

was launched with a three-day residential programme during which participants attended

workshops on critical writing, took part in peer assessment activities, and set up an editorial

board for an online journal. Run entirely by and for doctoral students, the journal continued to

flourish for over three years, during which time the participants were continuously engaged in

writing, editing, and peer reviewing. We report here on students’ perceptions of the impact of

their sustained, long-term involvement in the work of the editorial board, including writing and

peer reviewing, and we consider the implications of the findings for doctoral programmes.