Abstract
Although student self-assessment is positively related to achievement, skepticism about the accuracy of students’ self-assessments remains. A few studies have shown that even elementary school students are able to provide accurate self-assessments when certain conditions are met. We developed an innovative tablet-computer-based tool for capturing self-assessments of mathematics and reading comprehension. This tool integrates the conditions required for accurate self-assessment: (1) a non-competitive setting, (2) items formulated on the task level, and (3) limited reading and no verbalization required. The innovation consists of using illustrations and a language-reduced rating scale. The correlations between students’ self-assessment scores and their standardized test scores were moderate to large. Independent of their proficiency level, students’ confidence in completing a task decreased as task difficulty increased, but these findings were more consistent in mathematics than in reading comprehension. We conclude that third- and fourth-graders have the ability to provide accurate self-assessments of their competencies, particularly in mathematics, when provided with an adequate self-assessment tool.
Highlights
IntroductionAcademic self-assessment refers to the activity of evaluating one’s (academic) performances or processes [1]
Academic self-assessment refers to the activity of evaluating one’s performances or processes [1]
It has been found that selfregulating students engage in three processes to observe and to interpret their behaviors: self-observations by which students concentrate on specific aspects of their performance relevant to their perception of success, self-judgments by which they assess the extent to which they have met their goals, and self-reactions by which they assess how satisfied they are with the results of their actions [10] [8] [11] [12]
Summary
Academic self-assessment refers to the activity of evaluating one’s (academic) performances or processes [1]. When students are asked to self-assess, they are challenged to think of and to express their understanding and performance When using such information, teachers can facilitate, adjust, and improve their teaching and learning activities [2] [3]. The relation between self-assessment and academic achievement can be explained through the processes of self-regulation [10] [11] [12] and through self-efficacy, the latter defined as “beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” [13] p. Student self-assessment combined with the feedback from a contextually important evaluator (i.e., teacher, tutor, peer) is more likely to induce self-regulatory activity [16]. In line with the explanations for how self-assessment is related to achievement, there is empirical evidence that self-assessment positively affects student motivation [11], engagement [17], self-efficacy [18] [19] [20], persistence ( on challenging tasks) [21], student choice of reference norms (ipsative vs. social) [8], and the quality of student-teacher relationship [22]
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