system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why do professors allow group peer evals to influence a student's grade if they can't see it?

It makes no sense to have a peer evaluation at the end of term where a student can't see the feedback given to them by their classmates. It also makes no sense to give evaluations at the end of term when the student can't change their behavior or learn from their mistakes. Why aren't evals given at midterm, and then a student has the rest of the term to correct their behavior?

In 2 of my classes this spring, I had to fill out an eval for a group or a partner. One of my project partners ditched our work on the last day of finals (yes, I know), but the other group went well. I filled out an honest, yet respectful and professional eval for the partner. That's when I realized, if we never see these evals, how is she supposed to know how to change her behavior? Perhaps she knows what she did was wrong, but I had other feedback in the eval she wouldn't know about.

In the other class, I was the one to receive a poorer than expected eval. I did ask the teacher for the feedback, and he refused to give it. I never received any notice from my classmates that they were less than satisfied with my work-- I attended all meetings and had my work prepared. Now that I think of it, I think a reason why they gave me a lower score is because I struggled with Excel and needed a little more help. That's my guess, I don't know.

It's frustrating to deal with as a student. Since I'm a non-traditional student, I'd expect these things to be handled the way adults should handle disagreements or giving constructive feedback.

ETA: I received a final grade of an A- in this class, so I'm not some slacker looking for excuses.

UPDATE: The teacher did email me back and said he wouldn't share the feedback because it was considered confidential information.
gpt
The answer is because a professor has no way of knowing (aside from these evals) how much of a group project was done by each member. Assuming the groups are larger than 2, the professor gets multiple reviews for each student and the professor then makes the judgement of whether to knock off a portion of the group's overall project grade for any individual.

I can understand wanting mid-point reviews, but the purpose of this exercise is to hand you the percent of the final grade that you earned (according to the people who worked closely with you for 4 months). If there's no mid-point grade, this exercise doesn't make sense for a professor to make you go through. If you want feedback from your group on your performance, you'll just have to ask.