Exploring the dynamic self-assessment process of students across different competency groups

Abstract

Once conceptualized as a static skill, self-assessment was believed to facilitate learning, foregrounding the role of accuracy. But when self-assessment is regarded as a dynamic process, less is known concerning how it unfolds and what differences there might be across students of different competency. To address this gap, the current study, situated in an undergraduate interpreting course, adopted a longitudinal and mixed-method design to record, capture and analyze the dynamics of the student voluntary self-assessment process as well as the sub-stages within. Analysis of variance was employed to process the quantitative data from a self-assessment practice scale, corroborated by qualitative analysis of student self-assessment reports and in-depth retrospective interviews. It was found that the students sought more external feedback through inquiry later in the semester. And highly competent students outperformed the least competent peers in this regard. But generally speaking, self-assessment practice of students was constant across time, and there was little significant difference among different competency groups. It attested to the potential of self-assessment implementation without formal guidance and regardless of student competency. But for self-assessment to be more rewarding, certain scaffolding is still necessary, particularly for students with intermediate competency.