The role of Intrinsic Motivation in Peer Assessment Activity: an empirical evaluation

To date, the digital peer assessment activity is spreading rapidly in educational contexts, due to the benefits it offers, such as reducing the workload and increasing the learning outcome. Thus, it is becoming increasingly necessary to clarify the role played by the peers' motivation in this activity. Indeed, although it is reasonable to expect that intrinsic motivation can influence the ability to perform correct peer assessments. Nowadays, to the best of our knowledge, only a few studies have been carried out on this subject. In this paper, aiming at providing evidence about the role that intrinsic motivation does play in the peer assessment activity, we report on a preliminary empirical evaluation, where we test the presence of potential correlation between intrinsic motivation and ability to assess. Our correlation results show that the greater is the ability to judge other peers' tasks, in digital mode, the greater was the motivation, expressed by the necessity to be satisfied and to feel self-realized in carrying out that activity. Overall, our preliminary findings make us confident about the role that intrinsic motivation plays in the peer assessment activity and open up the need to consider the motivation in future peer assessment studies and models.