Peer evaluation is widely recognized for its educational benefits; however, its reliability and validity, particularly among adolescent second-language (L2) writers at the early stages of English language and literacy development, remain insufficiently explored. This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study investigated the reliability and validity of peer evaluation in English argumentative writing among 35 Grade 10 and 37 Grade 12 students from a public high school in Beijing, China. Twelve of the participating students (six at each grade) were interviewed about the validity, reliability, and value of peer evaluation. The findings indicated that peer evaluations demonstrated high levels of reliability and validity, with peer-assessed writing scores closely aligning with inter-teacher assessments. Notably, variations were observed among Grade 10 students, particularly in the evaluation of lower-order writing skills, such as grammar and vocabulary, which exhibited reduced validity. These results underscore the potential of peer evaluation in assessing higher-order content-level writing across varying levels of L2 English writing proficiency. The study also highlights areas where adolescent L2 writers may require additional support to enhance the effectiveness of peer evaluation practices in English argumentative writing. Implications for improving English argumentative writing instruction and refining peer evaluation strategies in high school L2 English classrooms are discussed. • Peer evaluation shows high reliability, similar to inter-teacher rating. • Peer evaluation works well for higher-order skills in L2 argumentative writing. • 10th graders struggled with evaluating lower-order skills like grammar. • 12th graders evaluate lower- and higher-order skills with greater validity than 10th graders.

High school students for whom English is a second language (L2) often struggle with effective text revision because of limited ability to self-regulate their writing, that is, to manage the subprocesses of writing and to use writing-related knowledge and strategies. To help students in China acquire effective text revision skills for English persuasive essays, self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) revision instruction was applied both with and without peer interaction targeting knowledge of six writing dimensions. An experimental design involving 120 Chinese 11th-grade students in three conditions, that is, SRSD revision instruction with and without peer interaction (two treatment conditions) and conventional instruction without SRSD (control condition), was applied to examine the instructional effects on students’ writing and text revisions. Analyses of covariance revealed a statistically significant increase in text length and improvement in students’ text quality regarding higher-order content-level writing dimensions in both treatment conditions compared to the control condition in a post-intervention test. Notably, the most substantial improvement regarding both text length and text quality was observed in the SRSD plus peer interaction condition. Further, students in both treatment conditions made more text revisions involving longer text segments aimed at improving quality and changing meaning compared to those in the control condition. Among these, the students in the SRSD plus peer interaction condition exhibited the highest frequency of high-quality text revision during the posttest. The findings provide new insights into the effectiveness of SRSD revision instruction and peer interaction in developing L2 high school students’ self-regulation in revising English persuasive essays.

Peerceptiv is a peer assessment tool developed by learning sciences researchers to help students demonstrate disciplinary knowledge through writing feedback practices. This review of Peerceptiv describes its key features while comparing it with other writing feedback tools and suggesting possibilities and limitations of using it to support AI-based online writing assessment across the disciplines. Future considerations regarding the use of Peerceptiv in assessing, teaching, and researching online writing are discussed.