PLEASE NOTE: The most common error found in Peer Reviews is ‘missing details in the First Impressions section’. The introductory remarks need to summarize the purpose of the Report and the proposed solutions presented in the document. The bolded text below contains the necessary details.
To: XXX XXX, ENGL 301 Student Writer
From: XXX XXX 301 Student Reviewer
Date: March 19, 2022
Subject: Peer Review of Formal Report Proposal: Feasibility of Hybrid Course Delivery Computer Science at the University of British Columbia
Thank you for submitting this proposal for determining the feasibility of hybrid course delivery to computer science at the University of British Columbia. You have done a fantastic job in providing a basis for identifying the feasibility and demand of the hybrid model in order to help UBC students and staff receive benefits of both in-person and remote course delivery. Below you can find some suggestions for further enhancing this proposal:
First Impressions
A major strength of this draft is that it is reader-friendly, visually appealing, and maintains a consistent professional, objective, and positive tone that displays YOU-attitude effectively. Moreover, I am impressed by the variety of investigations that are examined to determine the feasibility and demand of a hybrid model at UBC; there is a great level of detail in recognizing the various important factors including commute durations and expenses, student and instructor opinions, resources required, and a compare and contrast section between primary and secondary research.
- One overall area of improvement would be to provide more transparency regarding the sample size of instructor interviews and student surveys, and it’s implications on the reliability of your findings. Including a brief section in your introduction to discuss potential limitations of the study would be helpful in this regard.
Title Page
- Good use of the descriptive word ‘feasibility’; this helps to announce the purpose of the report
- Contents are ordered appropriately (Title, Recipient, Author, and Submission Date)
- Ensuring that a running head is named and included will improve thoroughness and including the affiliations of the recipient and author will clarify to readers how your report is relevant to the recipient
- Referring to the textbook example of a title page on page 498 will be helpful in this regard
Table of Contents
- Good use of numbers, letters, roman numerals, and bolded and italicized words to clearly organize each heading and subheading
- Each heading and subheading is correctly labeled according to the page numbers
- Formatting the ‘Table of Contents’ heading by aligning it to the center and bolding it will improve visibility
- Including a separate table for your figures and tables below the table of contents will improve comprehensiveness
- Referring to the textbook example of a table of contents on page 498 will be helpful in this regard
Introduction
- A definition of the important technical term ‘remote method of course delivery’ is provided; this helps with understanding
- The ‘Background’ section does a great job at providing a brief background of the topic (how COVID-19 affected course delivery) and explaining the cause of the problem (the reintroduction of in-person course delivery causing students and staff to lose the benefits associated with online course delivery)
- The ‘Purpose and Methods’ section concisely explains the significance of the report (providing the benefits of both course delivery methods to students and staff), the proposed solution (a hybrid course model), the methods (student surveys and instructor interviews), and the purpose of the report (to assess demand and feasibility of the hybrid model)
- ‘The ‘Scope of the Inquiry’ section includes four varied areas of investigation (student commute data, student and instructor opinions, required resources, and primary vs secondary research comparison) that are each directly relevant to the purpose of the report and will help to provide evidence towards whether the hybrid model should be implemented
- One suggestion is to provide descriptions of some benefits of in-person learning, as this would complement the discussed benefits of online learning, and thus emphasize the benefit of combining both learning models using the hybrid delivery model
Data Section
- A short introduction for each of the four areas of inquiry is provided; this helps this to create a nice flow of information when reading and avoid gaps in information
- The headings and subheadings are visually appealing, help to avoid big chunks of text, and improve the overall structure
- The use of bullets help to emphasize common themes in the findings
- The figures are all visually appealing, correctly labeled, and effectively integrated into the text
- Consider changing the y-axis of the figures to reflect the number of responses as opposed to the proportions of responses, or to use pie charts as they would be more appropriate for displaying differences in the proportion of responses
- Consistent professional, objective, and positive tone throughout
- Consistent interpretation of results at each section; this helps to clarify the significance of your findings
- Overall I found this section of the draft to be the most informative; the various ways that a hybrid model can impact students and instructors are discussed in detail
Conclusion
- The ‘Summary and Interpretation of Findings’ concisely and accurately reflects most of the findings
- One suggestion would be to include a sentence regarding instructors overall opinions of the hybrid model, as their interviews were an integral part of the data section
- Another suggestion would be to include which computer science courses are particularly well-suited for a hybrid model (those that lack a discussion component and those that include programming-based in-class activities)
- The ‘Recommendations’ section maintains a polite tone, suggests recommendations that are realistic and directly relate to the purpose of the report and what was discussed in the data section, and includes a call to action which encourages the implementation of the hybrid model
Works Cited
- Good overall implementation of MLA formatting
- For the first citation, changing “Hoss, Thomas, et al.” to include the names of the other authors will help to maintain consistent MLA formatting
Appendix
- Nicely organized into two separate appendices: Appendix A for the student survey and Appendix B for the instructor interviews
- Good use of tables in Appendix A and bullets in Appendix B to further organize each appendix
- Separating each interview question in Appendix B with a space will help avoid large chucks of text
Grammar and Technical Errors
Please refer to the following in regards to minor grammatical errors:
Title Page
- Include the word ‘for’ after the word ‘delivery’ in the title
Purpose and Methods
- Consider changing ‘several’ to ‘two’ in the last sentence, as the word ‘several’ refers to an amount that is greater than two
Scope of the Inquiry
- Change ‘reports’ to ‘report’ in the sentence, “The scope of this reports covers areas…”
Similarities Between Existing Research and Survey Results
- Rephrase the middle of the second sentence to something such as “saved a significant amount of time by”; it is currently slightly awkward due to the word choice ‘measurable’
- Including the page numbers for in-text citations (for articles that include page numbers) will help to maintain consistent MLA formatting
Differences Between Existing Research and Survey Results
- Including the page numbers for in-text citations (for articles that include page numbers) will help to maintain consistent MLA formatting
Summary and Interpretation of Findings
- Rephrase the end of the third sentence of the third paragraph to something such as “required to set up hybrid courses”; it is currently slightly awkward to read due to the absence of the word ‘to’
Recommendations
- Change ‘increases’ to ‘increasing’ in the second sentence
Revisions: Please note the suggested revisions in this review that will improve the quality:
- Providing more transparency regarding sample size and the limitations of the study
- Revising the title page and table of contents as discussed
- Including benefits of the in-person model in the introduction
- Revisiting the data section figures as discussed
- Including a summary of instructor opinions and particularly well-suited computer science courses in the conclusion
- Adjusting the first citation of the works cited list as described
- Separating interview questions in Appendix B to avoid large chunks of text
- Correcting minor grammatical errors
Overall, this is an impressive document that provides many compelling reasons to further incorporate a hybrid model at UBC, and could allow students to have a more effective learning experience. I hope these suggestions will aid you during the revision process. Thank you and please contact me at XXX XXX@student.ubc.ca to ask any questions, it has been a pleasure reviewing your work.
Leave a Reply