Learning technical writing skills through peer review: Use of calibrated peer review™ in unit operation lab

Calibrated Peer Review™ (CPR™), initially developed by UCLA in the 1990s, is an internet-based educational tool that can be used to improve a student's technical understanding and writing in a large class. CPR™ applies the process of scientific peer review to education. Students perform research (study), write about their key findings, submit it for blind peer review (and act as reviewers themselves), and finally use peer feedback to improve their understanding. All of this can be done without intervention from the instructor using CPR™. This paper reports on an experimental study on the utility of CPR™ in chemical engineering education. CPR™ was introduced into a writing-intensive Unit Operation laboratory course. Students worked in teams and performed a set of experiments, but were required to submit individually-crafted executive summaries using CPR™. Improvements in student writing skills as well as critical reading skills were analyzed.