Influence of professional demographics on faculty feedback in asynchronous, video-annotated peer review (VAPR)

The use of an asynchronous video-annotated peer review system (VAPR) presents the opportunity to enhance teaching and diffuse pedagogical practice in higher education. The process involves the video recording of classroom teaching by each faculty member, which is then reviewed and annotated in real-time by faculty peers to identify specific instances of good practices, opportunities for improvement, and opportunities to incorporate research-based teaching approaches. The purpose of this study is to analyze the nature of faculty peer comments generated throughout the peer feedback process. Each peer-generated video annotation text file was coded to characterize the type of feedback given, encompassing characterizations such as: good practice, suggestions; types of teacher knowledge; and general attributes of teaching. The demographics of the peer authors, for corresponding annotations, are also classified based on highest degree, familiarity with the course as an instructor, and familiarity as a student. Findings indicate that a majority of the comments are related to the direct instruction of the course, rather than the content of the instruction. While not statistically significant, familiarity with the course as instructor is positively correlated to the number of comments pertaining to pedagogical content knowledge. These findings support the need for peer-review by faculty familiar with the course to offer context specific suggestions as well as those peers unfamiliar with the course to offer opportunities to diffuse instructional strategies from other contexts.