Effectiveness of Calibrated Peer Review[TM] for Improving Writing and Critical Thinking Skills in Biology Undergraduate Students

This study focuses on student development with Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) TM , a web-based tool created to promote writing and critical thinking skills. Research questions focus on whether or not students showed improvement in writing and reviewing competency with repeated use of CPR in a senior-level biology course and whether the difference between higher performing and lower performing students decreased over time. Four repeated measures analyses were conducted with different sets of students. Repeated measures analyses indicate that students showed improvement in writing skills and reviewer competency with repeated use of CPR. The difference between higher and lower performing students decreased over time in both writing skills and reviewer competency.