Achieving Student Engagement in Learning: Utilizing a Rubric-Based Assessment System for Visualizing Learners' Self-, Peer, and Teacher Assessments.

This research project ultimately aims to achieve high student engagement in learning by utilizing a rubric-based assessment system for students’ self- and peer assessments, as well as teacher assessments and feedback. This system was applied, at a university in Japan, to an English as a foreign language collaborative learning course to improve students’ presentations in English. Engagement in learning is defined in this paper as the communication in the learning process among the participants that can be measured quantitatively and evaluated qualitatively. To achieve engagement in the learning process by the participants, we created a rubric-based assessment system that enables both teachers and students to formatively assess personal performance toward the desired learning outcome by using a rubric, which, simultaneously, would visualize the assessments made by the teachers and the students on the screen of the students’ smartphones. Correlation analyses clarified the relationships among peer assessments, students’ motivations for continuous learning, and students’ course evaluations. There were positive correlations between trust in, and usefulness of, peer assessments; and among usefulness of peer assessments, motivations for continuous learning, and course evaluations. Semi-constructed interviews were also conducted and the results show that peer assessments would lead to improved performances in the students’ next presentations. These findings revealed that peer assessments and the visualization of the assessments by the participants through a rubric-based assessment system encourages the students to achieve mutual engagement in the learning process.