Interpersonal Assessment: Evaluating Others in Online Learning Environments

Abstract

This chapter introduces and discusses the concept of interpersonal assessment.Interpersonal assessment refers to the act of assessing what other participantsin an online learning environment know and how they behave. Interpersonalassessment is critical for successful learning outcomes, especially incollaborative groups, since students need to know what others in a groupknow and how they act to be able to work them. Moreover, knowledge aboutparticipants has implications for self, peer, and group assessment. Althoughinterpersonal assessment is important for both online and traditionallearning environments, it is often more difficult to assess others in onlinelearning environments due to the lack of face-to-face interaction, mediatedcues, and unshared contexts. In this chapter, I review the literature tosupport this thesis theoretically and look at evidence from preliminary dataanalysis of an online class. I also suggest future directions for researchand practice.