Hoping, Performing, learning, and Predicting: Changes in the Accuracy of Self-Evaluations of Peformance

Abstract

During a 15-week study, 23 students made performance self-evaluations before and after taking 3 in-class exams. Hypothesized changes in self-evaluative accuracy, defined as the correspondence of self-evaluations with an objective measure of performance, were based on theory and research on performance self-appraisals, judgment and decision making, and the self. The accuracy of self-evaluations of performance was predicted to vary systematically based on changes in informational and motivational context across repeated trials. As hypothesized, preperformance evaluations for the first exam were overly opti- mistic, and accuracy was poor. Accuracy improved on the postperformance evaluations. On the second and third exams, task performance was better, and accuracy also improved slightly. Results support the notion that the tendency toward excessive optimism about one's performance is tempered by perfor- mance feedback and by experience with the task.