The value of GenAI for peer feedback provision: student perceptions and impacts

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has sparked a global debate on its potential
as a feedback source for students, yet research in this area remains limited. This study
explores students’ use of GenAI during peer feedback provision. Fifty-four graduate
students enrolled in a master’s course in the food science domain at a Dutch
university received instruction on the effective and ethical use of GenAI. They then
wrote an argumentative essay, provided feedback to peers, and revised their essays.
Finally, students completed an online questionnaire regarding their perceptions and
use of GenAI for peer feedback provision. Descriptive analyses were applied to survey
data and comment data were coded quantitatively for the presence of comment
features. The results revealed that just over half of the students chose not to use
GenAI for peer feedback provision, primarily because they believed they would learn
more by completing the task independently. The remaining students used GenAI to
improve both high-level and low-level aspects of their feedback, and most of these
students found GenAI to be moderately helpful for peer feedback provision. In terms
of its impact on the peer feedback content, students who used GenAI provided more
suggestions for high-level issues and offered less mitigating praise for low-level issues
compared to those who did not use GenAI for peer feedback provision. These results
offer valuable insights for the design and adoption of GenAI tools to enhance peer
feedback practices.