Peer Review Versus Manual Assessment in a Multicultural 3D Modeling Course

This paper examines the implementation and effectiveness of peer review evaluation compared to manual assessment in a large-scale 3D modeling course, offered to international and local students at a European university. The study compares student performance data across two academic years, with peer evaluation in 2023 and manual assessment in 2024 for the same course. Results demonstrate that peer review evaluation can be an effective assessment method for large-scale engineering courses, reducing instructor workload from approximately 30 hours to 1 hour per exercise while maintaining educational effectiveness. Additionally, an interesting phenomenon was observed: international students seemed more motivated to pursue higher grades compared to local students. Their performance followed a similar trend, regardless of the evaluation method used. Finally, to better understand this difference, informal discussions were held with students and teachers. These conversations indicated that international students face more challenges after graduation, which may explain their motivation to achieve higher academic results.