Argumentative peer review as an effort to improve scientific writing skills on laboratory reports from home during the pandemic time of Covid-19

Scientific writing skills as one of the aspects of scientific literacy enable students to have thinking competencies in sustainability that facilitate problem-solving related to real-world sustainability issues, challenges, and opportunities. Many studies have been engaging to search various strategies to support students’ scientific literacy by applying scientific practices. Peer review is the critical evaluation of an academic’s work by scientists in the same or similar field of study to ensure the research report is valid dan original scientifically. This study aimed to investigate the effect of peer review on pre-service biology teachers’ scientific writing skills. For this purpose, a single group pre-post evaluation design was conducted with 208 pre-service biology teachers. The instrument used to measure scientific writing skills is a practicum report assessment was carried out using a report assessment rubric. This scientific writing skill data was then analyzed using non-parametric statistical tests and further studied which aspects are most developed. The result showed that peer review helped to improve scientific writing skills on laboratory reports during the study from home in the pandemic era. While writing result and discussion part was the most improvement among other parts of the lab report. There are some other conclusions and implications of this study dealing with scientific literacy and laboratory application for teachers and researchers.