Comparison of written versus verbal peer feedback for design projects

Engineering design project courses offer an opportunity for students to develop their communication skills. Developing such skills through written documents and verbal conversation are important to ensure students possess the professional skills required of practicing engineers. The following paper includes two complementary studies that utilize peer feedback comparing: (1) written versus verbal feedback and (2) second-year students to seniors. Study I investigates the impact of multiple means of expression and action in two concurrent sections of a second-year project course. Study II compares students in the second-year project course that used verbal feedback with students in a senior capstone course that used the same verbal feedback approach. Our findings suggest that providing students with the option of giving verbal peer feedback encourages them to provide a higher percentage of critiques with elaboration versus surface critiques without elaboration. We also observed senior students to have further developed the skill of providing constructive criticism, as opposed to just criticism, both on technical and professional content.