Effects Of Peer Review On Self-Efficacy

Based on the Chinese-English simultaneous interpretation (SI) practice, the thesis analyses the relationship between peer review and self-efficacy, namely the effects of peer review on self-efficacy.Peer review is also called peer feedback or peer assessment. In the process of peer review, peers may learn from each other by observing, imitating and reviewing behaviors of peers.In 1977, Albert Bandura put forward the concept of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the conviction or belief that one can execute the courses of actions required to manage prospective situations. Self-efficacy determines people's choices of activities, how much efforts they will expend and how long they will sustain the efforts in performing given tasks, and also influences how people think, behave, and feel in performing such tasks.Bandura points out that the source, development and validation of self-efficacy have to do with peers and schools. However, despite the many researches related to peer review and self-efficacy separately, there are few researches on the effects of peer review on self-efficacy in Chinese-English SI researches. After summarizing previous experiments, the author identifies the scope of this research:studying the effects of peer review on self-efficacy in the Chinese-English SI learning.The author hypothesizes that during Chinese-English SI learning, peer review can help increase self-efficacy for student interpreters.To prove the hypothesis, the author conducted an experiment, where students majored in English Interpretation in the second year of postgraduate studies of Beijing Foreign Studies University, were invited and divided into two groups---the experimental group and the control group. Participants of the experimental group were required to conduct peer review in Chinese-English (C-E) SI class while those of the control group weren't required to use any form of peer review. At the end of this term, participants were given self-efficacy questionnaire to collect data.Through the quantitative and qualitative analysis, the experiment shows a clear positive correlation between peer review and self-efficacy. However, peer review has different impact on the different elements of self-efficacy. Moreover, peer review can have different effects on different individuals.