student self assessment essay

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Myself — Self Assessment

Self Assessment Essay Examples

How to write a self-assessment essay.

If you're tasked with writing a self-assessment essay, it's essential to start with a clear understanding of the topic. Here are some prompt samples to help you grasp the key aspects:

Prompt 1: Reflect on your personal growth and development over the past year, highlighting your strengths and areas for improvement.
Prompt 2: Describe a significant life event or experience that has had a profound impact on your self-awareness and decision-making.
Prompt 3: Analyze your academic or professional achievements and setbacks, discussing the lessons learned and future goals.
Prompt 4: Explore the role of self-assessment in career planning and personal development, providing real-life examples.

Brainstorming and Choosing a Compelling Essay Topic

Now that you have some prompts to work with, it's time to brainstorm and select a captivating essay topic. Consider the following points:

Personal Significance: Choose a topic that holds personal significance and allows you to delve deep into your experiences and self-reflection.
Relevance: Ensure your topic is relevant to the prompt and showcases your ability to critically assess your own journey.
Transformation: Highlight moments of growth, change, or self-discovery that can engage your readers and provide valuable insights.
Uniqueness: Avoid clichéd or superficial topics. Aim for authenticity and originality in your self-assessment.

Unique Self-Assessment Essay Topics

Here's a list of unique essay topics that go beyond the ordinary:

The Impact of Solo Travel on Self-Discovery and Personal Growth
Navigating Adversity: How Overcoming Challenges Shaped My Self-Assessment
The Evolution of My Leadership Skills: A Self-Assessment of My Journey
From Student to Professional: Assessing My Transition into the Working World
Self-Assessment Through Art: How Creative Expression Reflects My Inner World
Exploring the Intersection of Cultural Identity and Self-Reflection
My Digital Persona: Analyzing the Effects of Social Media on Self-Perception
Self-Assessment in Pursuit of Wellness: Balancing Mental and Physical Health
Reinventing Myself: A Self-Assessment of Career Changes and Adaptability
Rediscovering Passions: How Hobbies and Interests Reflect Personal Growth
The Role of Mentorship in My Professional and Personal Self-Assessment
Through the Lens of Literature: Analyzing Characters and Personal Growth
Breaking Barriers: My Journey to Self-Confidence and Assertiveness
From Introvert to Extrovert: An Introspective Look at My Social Transformation
Parenting and Self-Assessment: Navigating the Challenges and Rewards of Parenthood
The Influence of Travel on My Cultural Awareness and Global Self-Assessment
Embracing Failure: How Mistakes Have Shaped My Self-Understanding
The Intersection of Passion and Profession: A Self-Assessment of Career Satisfaction
My Role in Community Service: Self-Assessment of Impact and Personal Growth
The Quest for Work-Life Balance: A Self-Assessment of Priorities and Well-Being

Paragraph and Phrase Inspiration

When crafting your essay, here are some sample paragraphs and phrases that can inspire your writing:

Introduction: "The journey of self-assessment is a winding path that leads us through moments of clarity and introspection."
Main Body: "One pivotal moment in my self-assessment journey was when I realized that..."
Counterargument: "While some may argue that self-assessment is self-indulgent, it is, in fact, a vital tool for personal growth and development."
Conclusion: "In conclusion, the process of self-assessment is an ongoing endeavor, an exploration of the self that brings us closer to understanding who we are and who we can become."

With these tips and unique ideas, you're well-equipped to write an engaging self-assessment essay that offers valuable insights into your personal journey and growth. Remember to be authentic and reflective throughout your writing. If you're looking for further guidance, consider exploring evaluation essay examples to learn from.

Social Work Field Education: Self-assessment

Personal development and self-assessment exercises, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

My Self-assessment: Introvert, Sensing, Feeling, and Judging (isfj)

The usefulness of self-assessment tools for personal development, a self assessment as an english major at howard university, the analysis of my personality tests, let us write you an essay from scratch.

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Describing Myself as a Holiday Destination

Learning styles and motivation reflection , evaluation of my self-esteem, personal experience that made me better than before, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

The Relationship Between Teens Self-esteem and Social Media

Personality assessment using the hexaco model of personality structure, self assessment using the merkler interest and personality type, analysis of my characteristics on the path to self-actualization, self-improvement and success – hand in hand, a study on kolb's theory of learning cycle, analysis on the means of boosting personal perception, a nutrition paper on self assessment of physical health, the link between self-esteem and adolescent depression, my health beliefs and behavior, self-assessment to the role of school psychologist, effective ways to deal with shyness, spotlight effect as a reason of low self-esteem, the different causes and effects of low self-esteem, how to be an open minded person, overview of the issue of low self esteem and its impact on one's life, a report on the improvement of my speech as a public speaker through self-assessment, self esteem among working and non working woman, promotion of low self esteem by fashion magazines, a study of the relation of gender and self-esteem in conformity, relevant topics.

Personal Beliefs
Personal Goals
Personal Strengths
Self Reflection
About Myself
Winter Break
Law of Life

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

15 Self-Assessment Examples for Students

self-assessment examples and definition, explained below

Self-assessment is when we analyze our own behavior. It is a way for us to understand how we are doing at something.

People who self-assess will examine their current level of performance on a given dimension in order to see how they can improve.

We can compare our performance to a known standard or our own set of goals. That evaluation will enable us to identify our strengths and weaknesses, and help us chart a path of progress.

Self-assessment can be applied in just about any context. For example, we can assess our level of fitness, how we perform during a job interview, or if we are easy to work with, or not.

Definition of Self-Assessment

Brown and Harris (2013, p. 368) defined self-assessment in a school context as a “descriptive and evaluative act carried out by the student concerning his or her own work and academic abilities” .

Making a judgment regarding our own abilities is easier said than done. If we want to know the truth, then we need an objective assessment.

That’s not easy to do when it comes to our own performance, because:

Some people may have a positive bias about their abilities and give themselves high ratings when that might not be deserved.
Other people are very critical of themselves and may be overly harsh.

Ideally, evaluations should come from professionals with a lot of training and experience. However, that’s not always convenient and it can also be expensive. So, although self-assessments are not ideal, they are very practical.

Student Self-Assessment Examples

1. keeping a diary.

If you’re not sure how to self-assess, the first step could be to keep a diary of what you’ve been doing. This is a form of personal reflection that allows you to pause and assess your progress.

There are also some great self-assessment diaries out there, such as the various reflective teaching diaries, that provide prompting questions such as “what is your mood right now?” and “what’s something you did that you were proud of today?”

These moments of self-reflection also act as moments of self-assessment . While you reflect, you also pause to assess your actions and what you could have done differently to change outcomes next time. In this process, you can learn to more effectively self-regulate and incrementally improve.

2. Self-Reflection After a Meeting

None of us want to be labeled as “difficult” or “lazy”. So, after a meeting, it is a good idea to take a few moments and reflect on how we did. Were we attentive? Did we participate enough, or did we talk too much? Were we argumentative and unreasonable, or did we make constructive comments?

One of the most difficult challenges of work is getting along with colleagues. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone wants to pursue their own agenda.

In addition to that, everyone has a different personality. Some of those personalities might be difficult to deal with, day in and day out.

So, understanding how we are to work with is important.

Work consumes most of our lives. Having a successful career is essential to so many other aspects of our happiness. Therefore, reflecting on how we act in meetings can go a long way to helping us be more respectful and conciliatory.

See More: Self-Reflection Examples

3. Recording Your Presentation at Work

One form of self-assessment that can be extremely valuable is to record our presentations. It can be a sales pitch or product proposal, or just about anything else. There is probably no better way to evaluate our performance than recording it.

We can make observations about our intonation and rate of speech, in addition to our posture and any odd mannerisms we might exhibit. Of course, we can ask a trusted colleague to watch and give us a few insights as well.

Surprisingly, based on some research findings, there may not always be agreement between our self-assessment and what our peers think (Campbell et al., 2001).

4. Filming your Sports Performance

In the same way that you can record a business presentation, you can also record yourself participating in sports to watch it back.

In fact, professional sportspeople and their coaches like tennis players, football players, and baseball batters will all film themselves to see how they performed.

They might be looking at their stance in tennis to see if they’ve got the right posture. In baseball, they may be looking at the position of the shoulders and elbows when the batter swings his bat. These observations can help shape a sportsperson’s self-concept so they have a realistic idea of their abilities.

By watching their actions, the sportspeople can assess their own actions and see themselves from a new perspective. It gives them the opportunity to see things about their actions that they couldn’t see in the moment.

5. Tracking Your Gym Workouts

Recording your daily workouts at the gym is another form of self-assessment. This will help you assess your current status and also help you become aware of your rate of progress.

Back in the old days, people used to carry clipboards around with them at the gym. After finishing each set, they would write down how much weight they lifted and the number of reps. It was also a good excuse to take a breather.

Of course, in this century, there’s an APP for that. Instead of using a paper worksheet and wooden pencil that was made by killing trees and destroys the environment, you can use an electronic version on your smartphone that was made with rare earth minerals and child labor.

6. Tracking Personal Growth

Personal growth is a long-term process. The goal is to make continuous progress over time. That can mean months or even years.

Over time, we can continuously make improvements in our sense of well-being, state of mind, or even our spirituality.

Assessing your personal growth can be on any dimension of life you want. It can be about our sense of well-being, our level of knowledge, level of spirituality, or anything else that is deeply important to you.

First, you determine where you are now and where you want to be in the future. This will help you identify your goals and set targets. Make sure that your targets are realistic and feasible, and phrased in a way that is measurable. For example, don’t just say that you “want to learn more about history.” Instead, say that your goal is to take a university course or read two books on the Roman Empire.

Phrasing your personal growth goal in a concrete manner makes them easy to determine if they have been accomplished or not. Furthermore, when they are accomplished, you can see it, and this will help you build your own self-efficacy .

7. Using a Fitness App

There are so many fitness apps available today that you can find one, or a couple thousand, that will suit your needs just fine.

Generally speaking, these apps fall into one of three categories: nutrition, workout, and activity.

These apps will allow you to become more aware of your nutritional intake, chart your progress at the gym, or record how long and how far you walk or run. Fitness apps are a great way to assess if you are making progress on any of these health dimensions, or if you are just maintaining the status quo .

It’s an example of elf-assessment in the palm of your hand.

8. Participating in a Mock Job Interview

Before going into a job interview, people will often practice in a mock interview to self-assess their performance in order to improve before the big event!

Job interviews can be a bit stressful. There is a lot riding on your performance, especially if it is for a job that you really want. Plus, you only have one shot. If you fail the first interview, you will not get called back for another.

Many universities have career centers that offer students an opportunity to receive valuable coaching regarding their job interview performance. This involves going through a mock interview with an experienced professional.

Afterward, the coach and student will discuss the results together. Participating in a mock interview is a fantastic way to assess your strengths and weaknesses, and just might help you land a great job.

9. Comparing Your Work with Others

One of the best ways to know how good you are is by comparing your performance with others. This is a kind of self-assessment by way of social comparison.

For example, after spending a ton of time on an essay, it is easy to be so immersed in it that you lose objectivity. You may think that you have really nailed it. However, instead of waiting to get the essay back from your teacher, it is a good idea to see an example of a paper that was already completed and evaluated as being very good.

You can then compare and contrast that essay with yours . Maybe the literature review in the really good essay went into much more detail than you thought was necessary. Or, maybe it contained charts and graphs that yours did not.

This form of self-assessment can be very informative.

10. Hiring a Life Coach

A life coach is an expert on helping people get the most out of their lives. A life coach can help someone improve their career, romantic relationship, or even offer advice on how to handle day-do-day affairs.

Every life coach is different, but generally speaking they will construct a very holistic assessment of a client by conducting in-depth conversations with them and maybe even make direct observations over an extended period of time. This will give them enough information to make suggestions and provide guidance. They will even take their services one step further and help the client implement those changes.

So, if you are looking for a comprehensive assessment of your life, something that is also very practical and forward-looking, then a life coach may be exactly what you need.

11. Career Aptitude Test

A career aptitude test is a simple questionnaire that asks about your interests, values, skills, and personality characteristics. It then uses that data to identify different careers that would be a good match to your profile.

It is a great self-assessment tool that can offer some career guidance. You can discover which professions are most suited to your unique profile. The results can be surprising. You just might discover that people like you do very well in a certain job you would have never considered before.

These sorts of self-assessments are often given to students graduating from high school. High school students are at a phase in their life where a decision about what sort of career they want to do is at the front of mind. So, it’s the perfect time to take one of these tests.

12. Taking the Big Five Personality Traits Inventory

A personality trait is a consistent way that a person acts and feels. The Big Five personality traits are considered to be the most commonly occurring. They consist of: extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness , and neuroticism. Everyone has these 5 traits to one degree or another.

Research has investigated how these traits relate to an incredibly wide range of subject matter, from leadership style to quality of romantic relationships and everything in between. Not only are the Big Five consistent across diverse cultures, but they have considerable stability across the lifespan as well (Rantanen et al., 2007).

Fortunately, there are many versions of this inventory available online. Most have reasonable reliability and validity. So, if you wish to conduct a personality self-assessment, there are many options to choose from.

13. Using a Wellness Wheel

A Wellness Wheel is a form of self-assessment that examines all aspects of our life. Most wheels include seven dimensions: spiritual, emotional, professional, intellectual, social, physical, and environmental.

Wellness wheels are very popular because they can provide a snapshot of our current status from a broad perspective.

By examining the status of our life on these seven dimensions, we can increase our self-awareness . If that analysis leads to the conclusion that we need change, then the wellness wheel will show us wear to focus most of our effort.

The Wellness Wheel is an example of a very holistic approach to self-assessment. It doesn’t require a trained professional either, and many versions are available online.

14. Metacognitive Strategies

Metacognition refers to the act of thinking about thinking. It requires you to reflect on how you went about a task and identify pros, cons, and alternatives to the way you went about the task.

For example, if you had just had an argument with a friend, metacognition might involve reflecting on how you lost your cool and started saying things you regretted. You can think about why you followed that thought path, and how you might have been able to de-fuse the situation in the future.

Another example is reflecting on your own learning style. You may have tried to study for a test using reading, leading to a poor test score. Upon reflection, you may realize you were getting very tired when reading; and as a result, next time you are going to try to study by watching lecture videos instead of reading.

15. Taking a Myers-Briggs Test

A Myers-Briggs test is a personality test that can help you to understand your own personality and the personalities of others.

The test assesses you against 16 different personality types, and each type has its own strengths and weaknesses.

The Myers-Briggs test can help you to find out your own personality type, and it can also be used to improve communication and team work by understanding the different strengths and weaknesses of each personality type.

Thus, while the tool is doing the assessment, by self-administering this test, you’re actually self-evaluating in order to learn more about yourself and how you interact with the people around you.

Self-assessment can help us get a better handle on where we are in life or in our profession. Examining our status quo can help us identify our strengths and the areas that we should try to improve.

Self-assessment comes in many forms. It can include modern technology such as fitness apps, or old-school tech like making a video recording. There are also forms that don’t involve any technology at all. Hiring a real live person to be your life coach may be a bit pricey, but it is a long-term strategy that can be personal and totally centered on your needs.

No matter your preference or goals, there are many self-assessment methods available.

Andrade HL (2019) A Critical Review of Research on Student Self-Assessment. Frontiers in Education, 4(87). https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00087

Brown, G. T., and Harris, L. R. (2013). Student self-assessment. In J. H. McMillan (Ed.), Sage Handbook of Research on Classroom Assessment , pp. 367-393. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452218649.n21

Campbell, K. S., Mothersbaugh, D. L., Brammer, C., & Taylor, T. (2001). Peer versus self- assessment of oral business presentation performance. Business Communication Quarterly , 64 (3). https://doi.org/10.1177/108056990106400303

John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big-Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (Vol. 2, pp. 102–138). New York: Guilford Press.

Muntaner-Mas, A., Martinez-Nicolas, A., Lavie, C.J. et al. (2019). A systematic review of fitness apps and their potential clinical and sports utility for objective and remote assessment of cardiorespiratory fitness. Sports Medicine, 49 , 587–600. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-019-01084-y

Rantanen, J., Metsäpelto, R. L., Feldt, T., Pulkkinen, L. E. A., & Kokko, K. (2007). Long‐term stability in the Big Five personality traits in adulthood. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology , 48 (6), 511-518. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9450.2007.00609.x

Dave Cornell (PhD)

Dr. Cornell has worked in education for more than 20 years. His work has involved designing teacher certification for Trinity College in London and in-service training for state governments in the United States. He has trained kindergarten teachers in 8 countries and helped businessmen and women open baby centers and kindergartens in 3 countries.

Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 25 Positive Punishment Examples
Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 25 Dissociation Examples (Psychology)
Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 15 Zone of Proximal Development Examples
Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ Perception Checking: 15 Examples and Definition

Chris Drew (PhD)

This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.

Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 25 Positive Punishment Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 25 Dissociation Examples (Psychology)
Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 15 Zone of Proximal Development Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link Perception Checking: 15 Examples and Definition

Other ways to search:

Events Calendar
Student Self-assessment

Self-assessments encourage students to reflect on their growing skills and knowledge, learning goals and processes, products of their learning, and progress in the course. Student self-assessment can take many forms, from low-stakes check-ins on their understanding of the day’s lecture content to self-assessment and self-evaluation of their performance on major projects. Student self-assessment is also an important practice in courses that use alternative grading approaches . While the foci and mechanisms of self-assessment vary widely, at their core the purpose of all self-assessment is to “generate feedback that promotes learning and improvements in performance” (Andrade, 2019). Fostering students’ self-assessment skills can also help them develop an array of transferable lifelong learning skills, including:

Metacognition: Thinking about one’s own thinking. Metacognitive skills allow learners to “monitor, plan, and control their mental processing and accurately judge how well they’ve learned something” (McGuire & McGuire 2015).
Critical thinking: Carefully reasoning about the evidence and strength of evidence presented in support of a claim or argument.
Reflective thinking: Examining or questioning one’s own assumptions, positionality, basis of your beliefs, growth, etc.
Self-regulated learning: Setting goals, checking in on one’s own progress, reflecting on what learning or study strategies are working well or not so well, being intentional about where/when/how one studies, etc.

Students' skills to self-assess can vary, especially if they have not encountered many opportunities for structured self-assessment. Therefore, it is important to provide structure, guidance, and support to help them develop these skills over time.

Create a supportive learning environment so that students feel comfortable sharing their self-assessment experiences ( Create a Supportive Course Climate ).
Foster a growth-mindset in students by using strategies that show students that abilities can be grown through hard work, effective strategies, and help from others when needed ( Fostering Growth Mindset ; Identifying teaching behaviors that foster growth mindset classroom cultures ).
Set clear, specific, measurable, and achievable learning outcomes so that students know what is expected of them and can better assess their progress ( Creating and Using Learning Outcomes ).
Explain the concept of self-assessment and some of the benefits (above).
Provide students with specific prompts and/or rubrics to guide self-assessment ( assessing student learning with Rubrics ).
Provide clear instructions (see an example under Rubrics below).
Encourage students to make adjustments to their learning strategies (e.g., retrieval, spacing, interleaving, elaboration, generation, reflection, calibration; Make It Stick , pp. 200-225) and/or set new goals based on their identified areas for improvement.

Self-Assessment Techniques

Expand the boxes below to learn more about techniques you can use to engage students in self-assessment and decide which would work best for your context.

To foster self-assessment as part of students’ regular learning practice you can embed prompts directly into your formative and summative assignments and assessments.

What do you think is a fair grade for the work you have handed in, and why do you think so?
What did you do best in this task?
What did you do least well in this task?
What did you find was the hardest part of completing this task?
What was the most important thing you learned in doing this task?
If you had more time to complete the task, what (if anything) would you change, and why?

Providing students the opportunity to regularly engage in writing that allows them to reflect on their learning experiences, habits, and practices can help students retain learning, identify challenges, and strengthen their metacognitive skills. Reflective writing may take the form of short writing prompts related to assignments (see Embedded self-assessment prompts above and Classroom Assessment Techniques ) or writing more broadly about recent learning experiences (e.g., What? So What? Now What? Journals ). Reflective writing is a skill that takes practice and is most effective when done regularly throughout the course ( Using Reflective Writing to Deepen Student Learning ).

Rubrics are an important tool to help students self-assess their work, especially for self-assessment that includes multiple prompts about the same piece of work. If you’re providing a rubric to guide self-assessment, it is important to also provide instructions on how to use the rubric.

Students are using a rubric (e.g., grading rubric for written assignments (docx) ) to self-assess a draft essay before turning it in or making revisions. As part of that process, you want them to assess their use of textual evidence to support their claim. Here are example instructions you could provide (adapted from Beard, 2021):

To self-assess your use of textual evidence to support your claim, please follow these steps:

In your draft, highlight your claim sentence and where you used textual evidence to support your claim
Based on the textual evidence you used, circle your current level of skill on the provided rubric
Use the information on the provided rubric to list one action you can take to make your textual evidence stronger

Self-assessment surveys can be helpful if you are asking students to self-assess their skills, knowledge, attitudes, and/or effectiveness of study methods they used. These may take the form of 2-3 free-response questions or a questionnaire where students rate their agreement with a series of statements (e.g., I am skilled at creating formulas in Excel”, “I can define ‘promissory coup’”, “I feel confident in my study skills”). A Background Knowledge Probe administered at the very beginning of the course (or when starting a new unit) can help you better understand what students already know (or don’t know) about the class subject. Self-assessment surveys administered over time can help you and students assess their progress toward meeting defined learning outcomes (and provide you with feedback on the effectiveness of your teaching methods). Student Assessment of their Learning Gains is a free tool that you can use to create and administer self-assessment surveys for your course.

Wrappers are tools that learners use after completing and receiving feedback on an exam or assignment ( exam and assignment wrappers , post-test analysis ) or even after listening to a lecture ( lecture wrappers ). Instead of focusing on content, wrappers focus on the process of learning and are designed to provide students with a chance to reflect on their learning strategies and plan new strategies before the next assignment or assessment. The Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon includes multiple examples of exam, homework, and paper wrappers for several disciplines.

References:

Andrade, H. L. (2019). A critical review of research on student self-assessment . Frontiers in Education , 4, Article 87.

Beard, E. (2021, April 27). The importance of student self-assessment . Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA).

Brown, P. C., Roediger III, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

McGuire, S. Y., & McGuire, S. (2015). Teach students how to learn: Strategies you can incorporate into any course to improve student metacognition, study skills, and motivation . New York, NY: Routledge.

McMillan, J. H., & Hearn, J. (2008). Student Self-Assessment: The Key to Stronger Student Motivation and Higher Achievement . Educational Horizons , 87 (1), 40–49.

Race, P. (2001). A briefing on self, peer and group assessment (pdf) . LTSN Generic Centre, Assessment Series No. 9.

RCampus. (2023, June 7). Student self-assessments: Importance, benefits, and implementation .

Teaching (n.d.). Student Self-Assessment . University of New South Wales Sydney.

People also looked at

Systematic review article, a critical review of research on student self-assessment.

Educational Psychology and Methodology, University at Albany, Albany, NY, United States

This article is a review of research on student self-assessment conducted largely between 2013 and 2018. The purpose of the review is to provide an updated overview of theory and research. The treatment of theory involves articulating a refined definition and operationalization of self-assessment. The review of 76 empirical studies offers a critical perspective on what has been investigated, including the relationship between self-assessment and achievement, consistency of self-assessment and others' assessments, student perceptions of self-assessment, and the association between self-assessment and self-regulated learning. An argument is made for less research on consistency and summative self-assessment, and more on the cognitive and affective mechanisms of formative self-assessment.

This review of research on student self-assessment expands on a review published as a chapter in the Cambridge Handbook of Instructional Feedback ( Andrade, 2018 , reprinted with permission). The timespan for the original review was January 2013 to October 2016. A lot of research has been done on the subject since then, including at least two meta-analyses; hence this expanded review, in which I provide an updated overview of theory and research. The treatment of theory presented here involves articulating a refined definition and operationalization of self-assessment through a lens of feedback. My review of the growing body of empirical research offers a critical perspective, in the interest of provoking new investigations into neglected areas.

Defining and Operationalizing Student Self-Assessment

Without exception, reviews of self-assessment ( Sargeant, 2008 ; Brown and Harris, 2013 ; Panadero et al., 2016a ) call for clearer definitions: What is self-assessment, and what is not? This question is surprisingly difficult to answer, as the term self-assessment has been used to describe a diverse range of activities, such as assigning a happy or sad face to a story just told, estimating the number of correct answers on a math test, graphing scores for dart throwing, indicating understanding (or the lack thereof) of a science concept, using a rubric to identify strengths and weaknesses in one's persuasive essay, writing reflective journal entries, and so on. Each of those activities involves some kind of assessment of one's own functioning, but they are so different that distinctions among types of self-assessment are needed. I will draw those distinctions in terms of the purposes of self-assessment which, in turn, determine its features: a classic form-fits-function analysis.

What is Self-Assessment?

Brown and Harris (2013) defined self-assessment in the K-16 context as a “descriptive and evaluative act carried out by the student concerning his or her own work and academic abilities” (p. 368). Panadero et al. (2016a) defined it as a “wide variety of mechanisms and techniques through which students describe (i.e., assess) and possibly assign merit or worth to (i.e., evaluate) the qualities of their own learning processes and products” (p. 804). Referring to physicians, Epstein et al. (2008) defined “concurrent self-assessment” as “ongoing moment-to-moment self-monitoring” (p. 5). Self-monitoring “refers to the ability to notice our own actions, curiosity to examine the effects of those actions, and willingness to use those observations to improve behavior and thinking in the future” (p. 5). Taken together, these definitions include self-assessment of one's abilities, processes , and products —everything but the kitchen sink. This very broad conception might seem unwieldy, but it works because each object of assessment—competence, process, and product—is subject to the influence of feedback from oneself.

What is missing from each of these definitions, however, is the purpose of the act of self-assessment. Their authors might rightly point out that the purpose is implied, but a formal definition requires us to make it plain: Why do we ask students to self-assess? I have long held that self-assessment is feedback ( Andrade, 2010 ), and that the purpose of feedback is to inform adjustments to processes and products that deepen learning and enhance performance; hence the purpose of self-assessment is to generate feedback that promotes learning and improvements in performance. This learning-oriented purpose of self-assessment implies that it should be formative: if there is no opportunity for adjustment and correction, self-assessment is almost pointless.

Why Self-Assess?

Clarity about the purpose of self-assessment allows us to interpret what otherwise appear to be discordant findings from research, which has produced mixed results in terms of both the accuracy of students' self-assessments and their influence on learning and/or performance. I believe the source of the discord can be traced to the different ways in which self-assessment is carried out, such as whether it is summative and formative. This issue will be taken up again in the review of current research that follows this overview. For now, consider a study of the accuracy and validity of summative self-assessment in teacher education conducted by Tejeiro et al. (2012) , which showed that students' self-assigned marks tended to be higher than marks given by professors. All 122 students in the study assigned themselves a grade at the end of their course, but half of the students were told that their self-assigned grade would count toward 5% of their final grade. In both groups, students' self-assessments were higher than grades given by professors, especially for students with “poorer results” (p. 791) and those for whom self-assessment counted toward the final grade. In the group that was told their self-assessments would count toward their final grade, no relationship was found between the professor's and the students' assessments. Tejeiro et al. concluded that, although students' and professor's assessments tend to be highly similar when self-assessment did not count toward final grades, overestimations increased dramatically when students' self-assessments did count. Interviews of students who self-assigned highly discrepant grades revealed (as you might guess) that they were motivated by the desire to obtain the highest possible grades.

Studies like Tejeiro et al's. (2012) are interesting in terms of the information they provide about the relationship between consistency and honesty, but the purpose of the self-assessment, beyond addressing interesting research questions, is unclear. There is no feedback purpose. This is also true for another example of a study of summative self-assessment of competence, during which elementary-school children took the Test of Narrative Language and then were asked to self-evaluate “how you did in making up stories today” by pointing to one of five pictures, from a “very happy face” (rating of five) to a “very sad face” (rating of one) ( Kaderavek et al., 2004 . p. 37). The usual results were reported: Older children and good narrators were more accurate than younger children and poor narrators, and males tended to more frequently overestimate their ability.

Typical of clinical studies of accuracy in self-evaluation, this study rests on a definition and operationalization of self-assessment with no value in terms of instructional feedback. If those children were asked to rate their stories and then revise or, better yet, if they assessed their stories according to clear, developmentally appropriate criteria before revising, the valence of their self-assessments in terms of instructional feedback would skyrocket. I speculate that their accuracy would too. In contrast, studies of formative self-assessment suggest that when the act of self-assessing is given a learning-oriented purpose, students' self-assessments are relatively consistent with those of external evaluators, including professors ( Lopez and Kossack, 2007 ; Barney et al., 2012 ; Leach, 2012 ), teachers ( Bol et al., 2012 ; Chang et al., 2012 , 2013 ), researchers ( Panadero and Romero, 2014 ; Fitzpatrick and Schulz, 2016 ), and expert medical assessors ( Hawkins et al., 2012 ).

My commitment to keeping self-assessment formative is firm. However, Gavin Brown (personal communication, April 2011) reminded me that summative self-assessment exists and we cannot ignore it; any definition of self-assessment must acknowledge and distinguish between formative and summative forms of it. Thus, the taxonomy in Table 1 , which depicts self-assessment as serving formative and/or summative purposes, and focuses on competence, processes, and/or products.

Table 1 . A taxonomy of self-assessment.

Fortunately, a formative view of self-assessment seems to be taking hold in various educational contexts. For instance, Sargeant (2008) noted that all seven authors in a special issue of the Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions “conceptualize self-assessment within a formative, educational perspective, and see it as an activity that draws upon both external and internal data, standards, and resources to inform and make decisions about one's performance” (p. 1). Sargeant also stresses the point that self-assessment should be guided by evaluative criteria: “Multiple external sources can and should inform self-assessment, perhaps most important among them performance standards” (p. 1). Now we are talking about the how of self-assessment, which demands an operationalization of self-assessment practice. Let us examine each object of self-assessment (competence, processes, and/or products) with an eye for what is assessed and why.

What is Self-Assessed?

Monitoring and self-assessing processes are practically synonymous with self-regulated learning (SRL), or at least central components of it such as goal-setting and monitoring, or metacognition. Research on SRL has clearly shown that self-generated feedback on one's approach to learning is associated with academic gains ( Zimmerman and Schunk, 2011 ). Self-assessment of the products , such as papers and presentations, are the easiest to defend as feedback, especially when those self-assessments are grounded in explicit, relevant, evaluative criteria and followed by opportunities to relearn and/or revise ( Andrade, 2010 ).

Including the self-assessment of competence in this definition is a little trickier. I hesitated to include it because of the risk of sneaking in global assessments of one's overall ability, self-esteem, and self-concept (“I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me,” Franken, 1992 ), which do not seem relevant to a discussion of feedback in the context of learning. Research on global self-assessment, or self-perception, is popular in the medical education literature, but even there, scholars have begun to question its usefulness in terms of influencing learning and professional growth (e.g., see Sargeant et al., 2008 ). Eva and Regehr (2008) seem to agree in the following passage, which states the case in a way that makes it worthy of a long quotation:

Self-assessment is often (implicitly or otherwise) conceptualized as a personal, unguided reflection on performance for the purposes of generating an individually derived summary of one's own level of knowledge, skill, and understanding in a particular area. For example, this conceptualization would appear to be the only reasonable basis for studies that fit into what Colliver et al. (2005) has described as the “guess your grade” model of self-assessment research, the results of which form the core foundation for the recurring conclusion that self-assessment is generally poor. This unguided, internally generated construction of self-assessment stands in stark contrast to the model put forward by Boud (1999) , who argued that the phrase self-assessment should not imply an isolated or individualistic activity; it should commonly involve peers, teachers, and other sources of information. The conceptualization of self-assessment as enunciated in Boud's description would appear to involve a process by which one takes personal responsibility for looking outward, explicitly seeking feedback, and information from external sources, then using these externally generated sources of assessment data to direct performance improvements. In this construction, self-assessment is more of a pedagogical strategy than an ability to judge for oneself; it is a habit that one needs to acquire and enact rather than an ability that one needs to master (p. 15).

As in the K-16 context, self-assessment is coming to be seen as having value as much or more so in terms of pedagogy as in assessment ( Silver et al., 2008 ; Brown and Harris, 2014 ). In the end, however, I decided that self-assessing one's competence to successfully learn a particular concept or complete a particular task (which sounds a lot like self-efficacy—more on that later) might be useful feedback because it can inform decisions about how to proceed, such as the amount of time to invest in learning how to play the flute, or whether or not to seek help learning the steps of the jitterbug. An important caveat, however, is that self-assessments of competence are only useful if students have opportunities to do something about their perceived low competence—that is, it serves the purpose of formative feedback for the learner.

How to Self-Assess?

Panadero et al. (2016a) summarized five very different taxonomies of self-assessment and called for the development of a comprehensive typology that considers, among other things, its purpose, the presence or absence of criteria, and the method. In response, I propose the taxonomy depicted in Table 1 , which focuses on the what (competence, process, or product), the why (formative or summative), and the how (methods, including whether or not they include standards, e.g., criteria) of self-assessment. The collections of examples of methods in the table is inexhaustive.

I put the methods in Table 1 where I think they belong, but many of them could be placed in more than one cell. Take self-efficacy , for instance, which is essentially a self-assessment of one's competence to successfully undertake a particular task ( Bandura, 1997 ). Summative judgments of self-efficacy are certainly possible but they seem like a silly thing to do—what is the point, from a learning perspective? Formative self-efficacy judgments, on the other hand, can inform next steps in learning and skill building. There is reason to believe that monitoring and making adjustments to one's self-efficacy (e.g., by setting goals or attributing success to effort) can be productive ( Zimmerman, 2000 ), so I placed self-efficacy in the formative row.

It is important to emphasize that self-efficacy is task-specific, more or less ( Bandura, 1997 ). This taxonomy does not include general, holistic evaluations of one's abilities, for example, “I am good at math.” Global assessment of competence does not provide the leverage, in terms of feedback, that is provided by task-specific assessments of competence, that is, self-efficacy. Eva and Regehr (2008) provided an illustrative example: “We suspect most people are prompted to open a dictionary as a result of encountering a word for which they are uncertain of the meaning rather than out of a broader assessment that their vocabulary could be improved” (p. 16). The exclusion of global evaluations of oneself resonates with research that clearly shows that feedback that focuses on aspects of a task (e.g., “I did not solve most of the algebra problems”) is more effective than feedback that focuses on the self (e.g., “I am bad at math”) ( Kluger and DeNisi, 1996 ; Dweck, 2006 ; Hattie and Timperley, 2007 ). Hence, global self-evaluations of ability or competence do not appear in Table 1 .

Another approach to student self-assessment that could be placed in more than one cell is traffic lights . The term traffic lights refers to asking students to use green, yellow, or red objects (or thumbs up, sideways, or down—anything will do) to indicate whether they think they have good, partial, or little understanding ( Black et al., 2003 ). It would be appropriate for traffic lights to appear in multiple places in Table 1 , depending on how they are used. Traffic lights seem to be most effective at supporting students' reflections on how well they understand a concept or have mastered a skill, which is line with their creators' original intent, so they are categorized as formative self-assessments of one's learning—which sounds like metacognition.

In fact, several of the methods included in Table 1 come from research on metacognition, including self-monitoring , such as checking one's reading comprehension, and self-testing , e.g., checking one's performance on test items. These last two methods have been excluded from some taxonomies of self-assessment (e.g., Boud and Brew, 1995 ) because they do not engage students in explicitly considering relevant standards or criteria. However, new conceptions of self-assessment are grounded in theories of the self- and co-regulation of learning ( Andrade and Brookhart, 2016 ), which includes self-monitoring of learning processes with and without explicit standards.

However, my research favors self-assessment with regard to standards ( Andrade and Boulay, 2003 ; Andrade and Du, 2007 ; Andrade et al., 2008 , 2009 , 2010 ), as does related research by Panadero and his colleagues (see below). I have involved students in self-assessment of stories, essays, or mathematical word problems according to rubrics or checklists with criteria. For example, two studies investigated the relationship between elementary or middle school students' scores on a written assignment and a process that involved them in reading a model paper, co-creating criteria, self-assessing first drafts with a rubric, and revising ( Andrade et al., 2008 , 2010 ). The self-assessment was highly scaffolded: students were asked to underline key phrases in the rubric with colored pencils (e.g., underline “clearly states an opinion” in blue), then underline or circle in their drafts the evidence of having met the standard articulated by the phrase (e.g., his or her opinion) with the same blue pencil. If students found they had not met the standard, they were asked to write themselves a reminder to make improvements when they wrote their final drafts. This process was followed for each criterion on the rubric. There were main effects on scores for every self-assessed criterion on the rubric, suggesting that guided self-assessment according to the co-created criteria helped students produce more effective writing.

Panadero and his colleagues have also done quasi-experimental and experimental research on standards-referenced self-assessment, using rubrics or lists of assessment criteria that are presented in the form of questions ( Panadero et al., 2012 , 2013 , 2014 ; Panadero and Romero, 2014 ). Panadero calls the list of assessment criteria a script because his work is grounded in research on scaffolding (e.g., Kollar et al., 2006 ): I call it a checklist because that is the term used in classroom assessment contexts. Either way, the list provides standards for the task. Here is a script for a written summary that Panadero et al. (2014) used with college students in a psychology class:

• Does my summary transmit the main idea from the text? Is it at the beginning of my summary?

• Are the important ideas also in my summary?

• Have I selected the main ideas from the text to make them explicit in my summary?

• Have I thought about my purpose for the summary? What is my goal?

Taken together, the results of the studies cited above suggest that students who engaged in self-assessment using scripts or rubrics were more self-regulated, as measured by self-report questionnaires and/or think aloud protocols, than were students in the comparison or control groups. Effect sizes were very small to moderate (η 2 = 0.06–0.42), and statistically significant. Most interesting, perhaps, is one study ( Panadero and Romero, 2014 ) that demonstrated an association between rubric-referenced self-assessment activities and all three phases of SRL; forethought, performance, and reflection.

There are surely many other methods of self-assessment to include in Table 1 , as well as interesting conversations to be had about which method goes where and why. In the meantime, I offer the taxonomy in Table 1 as a way to define and operationalize self-assessment in instructional contexts and as a framework for the following overview of current research on the subject.

An Overview of Current Research on Self-Assessment

Several recent reviews of self-assessment are available ( Brown and Harris, 2013 ; Brown et al., 2015 ; Panadero et al., 2017 ), so I will not summarize the entire body of research here. Instead, I chose to take a birds-eye view of the field, with goal of reporting on what has been sufficiently researched and what remains to be done. I used the references lists from reviews, as well as other relevant sources, as a starting point. In order to update the list of sources, I directed two new searches 1 , the first of the ERIC database, and the second of both ERIC and PsychINFO. Both searches included two search terms, “self-assessment” OR “self-evaluation.” Advanced search options had four delimiters: (1) peer-reviewed, (2) January, 2013–October, 2016 and then October 2016–March 2019, (3) English, and (4) full-text. Because the focus was on K-20 educational contexts, sources were excluded if they were about early childhood education or professional development.

The first search yielded 347 hits; the second 1,163. Research that was unrelated to instructional feedback was excluded, such as studies limited to self-estimates of performance before or after taking a test, guesses about whether a test item was answered correctly, and estimates of how many tasks could be completed in a certain amount of time. Although some of the excluded studies might be thought of as useful investigations of self-monitoring, as a group they seemed too unrelated to theories of self-generated feedback to be appropriate for this review. Seventy-six studies were selected for inclusion in Table S1 (Supplementary Material), which also contains a few studies published before 2013 that were not included in key reviews, as well as studies solicited directly from authors.

The Table S1 in the Supplementary Material contains a complete list of studies included in this review, organized by the focus or topic of the study, as well as brief descriptions of each. The “type” column Table S1 (Supplementary Material) indicates whether the study focused on formative or summative self-assessment. This distinction was often difficult to make due to a lack of information. For example, Memis and Seven (2015) frame their study in terms of formative assessment, and note that the purpose of the self-evaluation done by the sixth grade students is to “help students improve their [science] reports” (p. 39), but they do not indicate how the self-assessments were done, nor whether students were given time to revise their reports based on their judgments or supported in making revisions. A sentence or two of explanation about the process of self-assessment in the procedures sections of published studies would be most useful.

Figure 1 graphically represents the number of studies in the four most common topic categories found in the table—achievement, consistency, student perceptions, and SRL. The figure reveals that research on self-assessment is on the rise, with consistency the most popular topic. Of the 76 studies in the table in the appendix, 44 were inquiries into the consistency of students' self-assessments with other judgments (e.g., a test score or teacher's grade). Twenty-five studies investigated the relationship between self-assessment and achievement. Fifteen explored students' perceptions of self-assessment. Twelve studies focused on the association between self-assessment and self-regulated learning. One examined self-efficacy, and two qualitative studies documented the mental processes involved in self-assessment. The sum ( n = 99) of the list of research topics is more than 76 because several studies had multiple foci. In the remainder of this review I examine each topic in turn.

Figure 1 . Topics of self-assessment studies, 2013–2018.

Consistency

Table S1 (Supplementary Material) reveals that much of the recent research on self-assessment has investigated the accuracy or, more accurately, consistency, of students' self-assessments. The term consistency is more appropriate in the classroom context because the quality of students' self-assessments is often determined by comparing them with their teachers' assessments and then generating correlations. Given the evidence of the unreliability of teachers' grades ( Falchikov, 2005 ), the assumption that teachers' assessments are accurate might not be well-founded ( Leach, 2012 ; Brown et al., 2015 ). Ratings of student work done by researchers are also suspect, unless evidence of the validity and reliability of the inferences made about student work by researchers is available. Consequently, much of the research on classroom-based self-assessment should use the term consistency , which refers to the degree of alignment between students' and expert raters' evaluations, avoiding the purer, more rigorous term accuracy unless it is fitting.

In their review, Brown and Harris (2013) reported that correlations between student self-ratings and other measures tended to be weakly to strongly positive, ranging from r ≈ 0.20 to 0.80, with few studies reporting correlations >0.60. But their review included results from studies of any self-appraisal of school work, including summative self-rating/grading, predictions about the correctness of answers on test items, and formative, criteria-based self-assessments, a combination of methods that makes the correlations they reported difficult to interpret. Qualitatively different forms of self-assessment, especially summative and formative types, cannot be lumped together without obfuscating important aspects of self-assessment as feedback.

Given my concern about combining studies of summative and formative assessment, you might anticipate a call for research on consistency that distinguishes between the two. I will make no such call for three reasons. One is that we have enough research on the subject, including the 22 studies in Table S1 (Supplementary Material) that were published after Brown and Harris's review (2013 ). Drawing only on studies included in Table S1 (Supplementary Material), we can say with confidence that summative self-assessment tends to be inconsistent with external judgements ( Baxter and Norman, 2011 ; De Grez et al., 2012 ; Admiraal et al., 2015 ), with males tending to overrate and females to underrate ( Nowell and Alston, 2007 ; Marks et al., 2018 ). There are exceptions ( Alaoutinen, 2012 ; Lopez-Pastor et al., 2012 ) as well as mixed results, with students being consistent regarding some aspects of their learning but not others ( Blanch-Hartigan, 2011 ; Harding and Hbaci, 2015 ; Nguyen and Foster, 2018 ). We can also say that older, more academically competent learners tend to be more consistent ( Hacker et al., 2000 ; Lew et al., 2010 ; Alaoutinen, 2012 ; Guillory and Blankson, 2017 ; Butler, 2018 ; Nagel and Lindsey, 2018 ). There is evidence that consistency can be improved through experience ( Lopez and Kossack, 2007 ; Yilmaz, 2017 ; Nagel and Lindsey, 2018 ), the use of guidelines ( Bol et al., 2012 ), feedback ( Thawabieh, 2017 ), and standards ( Baars et al., 2014 ), perhaps in the form of rubrics ( Panadero and Romero, 2014 ). Modeling and feedback also help ( Labuhn et al., 2010 ; Miller and Geraci, 2011 ; Hawkins et al., 2012 ; Kostons et al., 2012 ).

An outcome typical of research on the consistency of summative self-assessment can be found in row 59, which summarizes the study by Tejeiro et al. (2012) discussed earlier: Students' self-assessments were higher than marks given by professors, especially for students with poorer results, and no relationship was found between the professors' and the students' assessments in the group in which self-assessment counted toward the final mark. Students are not stupid: if they know that they can influence their final grade, and that their judgment is summative rather than intended to inform revision and improvement, they will be motivated to inflate their self-evaluation. I do not believe we need more research to demonstrate that phenomenon.

The second reason I am not calling for additional research on consistency is a lot of it seems somewhat irrelevant. This might be because the interest in accuracy is rooted in clinical research on calibration, which has very different aims. Calibration accuracy is the “magnitude of consent between learners' true and self-evaluated task performance. Accurately calibrated learners' task performance equals their self-evaluated task performance” ( Wollenschläger et al., 2016 ). Calibration research often asks study participants to predict or postdict the correctness of their responses to test items. I caution about generalizing from clinical experiments to authentic classroom contexts because the dismal picture of our human potential to self-judge was painted by calibration researchers before study participants were effectively taught how to predict with accuracy, or provided with the tools they needed to be accurate, or motivated to do so. Calibration researchers know that, of course, and have conducted intervention studies that attempt to improve accuracy, with some success (e.g., Bol et al., 2012 ). Studies of formative self-assessment also suggest that consistency increases when it is taught and supported in many of the ways any other skill must be taught and supported ( Lopez and Kossack, 2007 ; Labuhn et al., 2010 ; Chang et al., 2012 , 2013 ; Hawkins et al., 2012 ; Panadero and Romero, 2014 ; Lin-Siegler et al., 2015 ; Fitzpatrick and Schulz, 2016 ).

Even clinical psychological studies that go beyond calibration to examine the associations between monitoring accuracy and subsequent study behaviors do not transfer well to classroom assessment research. After repeatedly encountering claims that, for example, low self-assessment accuracy leads to poor task-selection accuracy and “suboptimal learning outcomes” ( Raaijmakers et al., 2019 , p. 1), I dug into the cited studies and discovered two limitations. The first is that the tasks in which study participants engage are quite inauthentic. A typical task involves studying “word pairs (e.g., railroad—mother), followed by a delayed judgment of learning (JOL) in which the students predicted the chances of remembering the pair… After making a JOL, the entire pair was presented for restudy for 4 s [ sic ], and after all pairs had been restudied, a criterion test of paired-associate recall occurred” ( Dunlosky and Rawson, 2012 , p. 272). Although memory for word pairs might be important in some classroom contexts, it is not safe to assume that results from studies like that one can predict students' behaviors after criterion-referenced self-assessment of their comprehension of complex texts, lengthy compositions, or solutions to multi-step mathematical problems.

The second limitation of studies like the typical one described above is more serious: Participants in research like that are not permitted to regulate their own studying, which is experimentally manipulated by a computer program. This came as a surprise, since many of the claims were about students' poor study choices but they were rarely allowed to make actual choices. For example, Dunlosky and Rawson (2012) permitted participants to “use monitoring to effectively control learning” by programming the computer so that “a participant would need to have judged his or her recall of a definition entirely correct on three different trials, and once they judged it entirely correct on the third trial, that particular key term definition was dropped [by the computer program] from further practice” (p. 272). The authors note that this study design is an improvement on designs that did not require all participants to use the same regulation algorithm, but it does not reflect the kinds of decisions that learners make in class or while doing homework. In fact, a large body of research shows that students can make wise choices when they self-pace the study of to-be-learned materials and then allocate study time to each item ( Bjork et al., 2013 , p. 425):

In a typical experiment, the students first study all the items at an experimenter-paced rate (e.g., study 60 paired associates for 3 s each), which familiarizes the students with the items; after this familiarity phase, the students then either choose which items they want to restudy (e.g., all items are presented in an array, and the students select which ones to restudy) and/or pace their restudy of each item. Several dependent measures have been widely used, such as how long each item is studied, whether an item is selected for restudy, and in what order items are selected for restudy. The literature on these aspects of self-regulated study is massive (for a comprehensive overview, see both Dunlosky and Ariel, 2011 and Son and Metcalfe, 2000 ), but the evidence is largely consistent with a few basic conclusions. First, if students have a chance to practice retrieval prior to restudying items, they almost exclusively choose to restudy unrecalled items and drop the previously recalled items from restudy ( Metcalfe and Kornell, 2005 ). Second, when pacing their study of individual items that have been selected for restudy, students typically spend more time studying items that are more, rather than less, difficult to learn. Such a strategy is consistent with a discrepancy-reduction model of self-paced study (which states that people continue to study an item until they reach mastery), although some key revisions to this model are needed to account for all the data. For instance, students may not continue to study until they reach some static criterion of mastery, but instead, they may continue to study until they perceive that they are no longer making progress.

I propose that this research, which suggests that students' unscaffolded, unmeasured, informal self-assessments tend to lead to appropriate task selection, is better aligned with research on classroom-based self-assessment. Nonetheless, even this comparison is inadequate because the study participants were not taught to compare their performance to the criteria for mastery, as is often done in classroom-based self-assessment.

The third and final reason I do not believe we need additional research on consistency is that I think it is a distraction from the true purposes of self-assessment. Many if not most of the articles about the accuracy of self-assessment are grounded in the assumption that accuracy is necessary for self-assessment to be useful, particularly in terms of subsequent studying and revision behaviors. Although it seems obvious that accurate evaluations of their performance positively influence students' study strategy selection, which should produce improvements in achievement, I have not seen relevant research that tests those conjectures. Some claim that inaccurate estimates of learning lead to the selection of inappropriate learning tasks ( Kostons et al., 2012 ) but they cite research that does not support their claim. For example, Kostons et al. cite studies that focus on the effectiveness of SRL interventions but do not address the accuracy of participants' estimates of learning, nor the relationship of those estimates to the selection of next steps. Other studies produce findings that support my skepticism. Take, for instance, two relevant studies of calibration. One suggested that performance and judgments of performance had little influence on subsequent test preparation behavior ( Hacker et al., 2000 ), and the other showed that study participants followed their predictions of performance to the same degree, regardless of monitoring accuracy ( van Loon et al., 2014 ).

Eva and Regehr (2008) believe that:

Research questions that take the form of “How well do various practitioners self-assess?” “How can we improve self-assessment?” or “How can we measure self-assessment skill?” should be considered defunct and removed from the research agenda [because] there have been hundreds of studies into these questions and the answers are “Poorly,” “You can't,” and “Don't bother” (p. 18).

I almost agree. A study that could change my mind about the importance of accuracy of self-assessment would be an investigation that goes beyond attempting to improve accuracy just for the sake of accuracy by instead examining the relearning/revision behaviors of accurate and inaccurate self-assessors: Do students whose self-assessments match the valid and reliable judgments of expert raters (hence my use of the term accuracy ) make better decisions about what they need to do to deepen their learning and improve their work? Here, I admit, is a call for research related to consistency: I would love to see a high-quality investigation of the relationship between accuracy in formative self-assessment, and students' subsequent study and revision behaviors, and their learning. For example, a study that closely examines the revisions to writing made by accurate and inaccurate self-assessors, and the resulting outcomes in terms of the quality of their writing, would be most welcome.

Table S1 (Supplementary Material) indicates that by 2018 researchers began publishing studies that more directly address the hypothesized link between self-assessment and subsequent learning behaviors, as well as important questions about the processes learners engage in while self-assessing ( Yan and Brown, 2017 ). One, a study by Nugteren et al. (2018 row 19 in Table S1 (Supplementary Material)), asked “How do inaccurate [summative] self-assessments influence task selections?” (p. 368) and employed a clever exploratory research design. The results suggested that most of the 15 students in their sample over-estimated their performance and made inaccurate learning-task selections. Nugteren et al. recommended helping students make more accurate self-assessments, but I think the more interesting finding is related to why students made task selections that were too difficult or too easy, given their prior performance: They based most task selections on interest in the content of particular items (not the overarching content to be learned), and infrequently considered task difficulty and support level. For instance, while working on the genetics tasks, students reported selecting tasks because they were fun or interesting, not because they addressed self-identified weaknesses in their understanding of genetics. Nugteren et al. proposed that students would benefit from instruction on task selection. I second that proposal: Rather than directing our efforts on accuracy in the service of improving subsequent task selection, let us simply teach students to use the information at hand to select next best steps, among other things.

Butler (2018 , row 76 in Table S1 (Supplementary Material)) has conducted at least two studies of learners' processes of responding to self-assessment items and how they arrived at their judgments. Comparing generic, decontextualized items to task-specific, contextualized items (which she calls after-task items ), she drew two unsurprising conclusions: the task-specific items “generally showed higher correlations with task performance,” and older students “appeared to be more conservative in their judgment compared with their younger counterparts” (p. 249). The contribution of the study is the detailed information it provides about how students generated their judgments. For example, Butler's qualitative data analyses revealed that when asked to self-assess in terms of vague or non-specific items, the children often “contextualized the descriptions based on their own experiences, goals, and expectations,” (p. 257) focused on the task at hand, and situated items in the specific task context. Perhaps as a result, the correlation between after-task self-assessment and task performance was generally higher than for generic self-assessment.

Butler (2018) notes that her study enriches our empirical understanding of the processes by which children respond to self-assessment. This is a very promising direction for the field. Similar studies of processing during formative self-assessment of a variety of task types in a classroom context would likely produce significant advances in our understanding of how and why self-assessment influences learning and performance.

Student Perceptions

Fifteen of the studies listed in Table S1 (Supplementary Material) focused on students' perceptions of self-assessment. The studies of children suggest that they tend to have unsophisticated understandings of its purposes ( Harris and Brown, 2013 ; Bourke, 2016 ) that might lead to shallow implementation of related processes. In contrast, results from the studies conducted in higher education settings suggested that college and university students understood the function of self-assessment ( Ratminingsih et al., 2018 ) and generally found it to be useful for guiding evaluation and revision ( Micán and Medina, 2017 ), understanding how to take responsibility for learning ( Lopez and Kossack, 2007 ; Bourke, 2014 ; Ndoye, 2017 ), prompting them to think more critically and deeply ( van Helvoort, 2012 ; Siow, 2015 ), applying newfound skills ( Murakami et al., 2012 ), and fostering self-regulated learning by guiding them to set goals, plan, self-monitor and reflect ( Wang, 2017 ).

Not surprisingly, positive perceptions of self-assessment were typically developed by students who actively engaged the formative type by, for example, developing their own criteria for an effective self-assessment response ( Bourke, 2014 ), or using a rubric or checklist to guide their assessments and then revising their work ( Huang and Gui, 2015 ; Wang, 2017 ). Earlier research suggested that children's attitudes toward self-assessment can become negative if it is summative ( Ross et al., 1998 ). However, even summative self-assessment was reported by adult learners to be useful in helping them become more critical of their own and others' writing throughout the course and in subsequent courses ( van Helvoort, 2012 ).

Achievement

Twenty-five of the studies in Table S1 (Supplementary Material) investigated the relation between self-assessment and achievement, including two meta-analyses. Twenty of the 25 clearly employed the formative type. Without exception, those 20 studies, plus the two meta-analyses ( Graham et al., 2015 ; Sanchez et al., 2017 ) demonstrated a positive association between self-assessment and learning. The meta-analysis conducted by Graham and his colleagues, which included 10 studies, yielded an average weighted effect size of 0.62 on writing quality. The Sanchez et al. meta-analysis revealed that, although 12 of the 44 effect sizes were negative, on average, “students who engaged in self-grading performed better ( g = 0.34) on subsequent tests than did students who did not” (p. 1,049).

All but two of the non-meta-analytic studies of achievement in Table S1 (Supplementary Material) were quasi-experimental or experimental, providing relatively rigorous evidence that their treatment groups outperformed their comparison or control groups in terms of everything from writing to dart-throwing, map-making, speaking English, and exams in a wide variety of disciplines. One experiment on summative self-assessment ( Miller and Geraci, 2011 ), in contrast, resulted in no improvements in exam scores, while the other one did ( Raaijmakers et al., 2017 ).

It would be easy to overgeneralize and claim that the question about the effect of self-assessment on learning has been answered, but there are unanswered questions about the key components of effective self-assessment, especially social-emotional components related to power and trust ( Andrade and Brown, 2016 ). The trends are pretty clear, however: it appears that formative forms of self-assessment can promote knowledge and skill development. This is not surprising, given that it involves many of the processes known to support learning, including practice, feedback, revision, and especially the intellectually demanding work of making complex, criteria-referenced judgments ( Panadero et al., 2014 ). Boud (1995a , b) predicted this trend when he noted that many self-assessment processes undermine learning by rushing to judgment, thereby failing to engage students with the standards or criteria for their work.

Self-Regulated Learning

The association between self-assessment and learning has also been explained in terms of self-regulation ( Andrade, 2010 ; Panadero and Alonso-Tapia, 2013 ; Andrade and Brookhart, 2016 , 2019 ; Panadero et al., 2016b ). Self-regulated learning (SRL) occurs when learners set goals and then monitor and manage their thoughts, feelings, and actions to reach those goals. SRL is moderately to highly correlated with achievement ( Zimmerman and Schunk, 2011 ). Research suggests that formative assessment is a potential influence on SRL ( Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006 ). The 12 studies in Table S1 (Supplementary Material) that focus on SRL demonstrate the recent increase in interest in the relationship between self-assessment and SRL.

Conceptual and practical overlaps between the two fields are abundant. In fact, Brown and Harris (2014) recommend that student self-assessment no longer be treated as an assessment, but as an essential competence for self-regulation. Butler and Winne (1995) introduced the role of self-generated feedback in self-regulation years ago:

[For] all self-regulated activities, feedback is an inherent catalyst. As learners monitor their engagement with tasks, internal feedback is generated by the monitoring process. That feedback describes the nature of outcomes and the qualities of the cognitive processes that led to those states (p. 245).

The outcomes and processes referred to by Butler and Winne are many of the same products and processes I referred to earlier in the definition of self-assessment and in Table 1 .

In general, research and practice related to self-assessment has tended to focus on judging the products of student learning, while scholarship on self-regulated learning encompasses both processes and products. The very practical focus of much of the research on self-assessment means it might be playing catch-up, in terms of theory development, with the SRL literature, which is grounded in experimental paradigms from cognitive psychology ( de Bruin and van Gog, 2012 ), while self-assessment research is ahead in terms of implementation (E. Panadero, personal communication, October 21, 2016). One major exception is the work done on Self-regulated Strategy Development ( Glaser and Brunstein, 2007 ; Harris et al., 2008 ), which has successfully integrated SRL research with classroom practices, including self-assessment, to teach writing to students with special needs.

Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006) have been explicit about the potential for self-assessment practices to support self-regulated learning:

To develop systematically the learner's capacity for self-regulation, teachers need to create more structured opportunities for self-monitoring and the judging of progression to goals. Self-assessment tasks are an effective way of achieving this, as are activities that encourage reflection on learning progress (p. 207).

The studies of SRL in Table S1 (Supplementary Material) provide encouraging findings regarding the potential role of self-assessment in promoting achievement, self-regulated learning in general, and metacognition and study strategies related to task selection in particular. The studies also represent a solution to the “methodological and theoretical challenges involved in bringing metacognitive research to the real world, using meaningful learning materials” ( Koriat, 2012 , p. 296).

Future Directions for Research

I agree with ( Yan and Brown, 2017 ) statement that “from a pedagogical perspective, the benefits of self-assessment may come from active engagement in the learning process, rather than by being “veridical” or coinciding with reality, because students' reflection and metacognitive monitoring lead to improved learning” (p. 1,248). Future research should focus less on accuracy/consistency/veridicality, and more on the precise mechanisms of self-assessment ( Butler, 2018 ).

An important aspect of research on self-assessment that is not explicitly represented in Table S1 (Supplementary Material) is practice, or pedagogy: Under what conditions does self-assessment work best, and how are those conditions influenced by context? Fortunately, the studies listed in the table, as well as others (see especially Andrade and Valtcheva, 2009 ; Nielsen, 2014 ; Panadero et al., 2016a ), point toward an answer. But we still have questions about how best to scaffold effective formative self-assessment. One area of inquiry is about the characteristics of the task being assessed, and the standards or criteria used by learners during self-assessment.

Influence of Types of Tasks and Standards or Criteria

Type of task or competency assessed seems to matter (e.g., Dolosic, 2018 , Nguyen and Foster, 2018 ), as do the criteria ( Yilmaz, 2017 ), but we do not yet have a comprehensive understanding of how or why. There is some evidence that it is important that the criteria used to self-assess are concrete, task-specific ( Butler, 2018 ), and graduated. For example, Fastre et al. (2010) revealed an association between self-assessment according to task-specific criteria and task performance: In a quasi-experimental study of 39 novice vocational education students studying stoma care, they compared concrete, task-specific criteria (“performance-based criteria”) such as “Introduces herself to the patient” and “Consults the care file for details concerning the stoma” to vaguer, “competence-based criteria” such as “Shows interest, listens actively, shows empathy to the patient” and “Is discrete with sensitive topics.” The performance-based criteria group outperformed the competence-based group on tests of task performance, presumably because “performance-based criteria make it easier to distinguish levels of performance, enabling a step-by-step process of performance improvement” (p. 530).

This finding echoes the results of a study of self-regulated learning by Kitsantas and Zimmerman (2006) , who argued that “fine-grained standards can have two key benefits: They can enable learners to be more sensitive to small changes in skill and make more appropriate adaptations in learning strategies” (p. 203). In their study, 70 college students were taught how to throw darts at a target. The purpose of the study was to examine the role of graphing of self-recorded outcomes and self-evaluative standards in learning a motor skill. Students who were provided with graduated self-evaluative standards surpassed “those who were provided with absolute standards or no standards (control) in both motor skill and in motivational beliefs (i.e., self-efficacy, attributions, and self-satisfaction)” (p. 201). Kitsantas and Zimmerman hypothesized that setting high absolute standards would limit a learner's sensitivity to small improvements in functioning. This hypothesis was supported by the finding that students who set absolute standards reported significantly less awareness of learning progress (and hit the bull's-eye less often) than students who set graduated standards. “The correlation between the self-evaluation and dart-throwing outcomes measures was extraordinarily high ( r = 0.94)” (p. 210). Classroom-based research on specific, graduated self-assessment criteria would be informative.

Cognitive and Affective Mechanisms of Self-Assessment

There are many additional questions about pedagogy, such as the hoped-for investigation mentioned above of the relationship between accuracy in formative self-assessment, students' subsequent study behaviors, and their learning. There is also a need for research on how to help teachers give students a central role in their learning by creating space for self-assessment (e.g., see Hawe and Parr, 2014 ), and the complex power dynamics involved in doing so ( Tan, 2004 , 2009 ; Taras, 2008 ; Leach, 2012 ). However, there is an even more pressing need for investigations into the internal mechanisms experienced by students engaged in assessing their own learning. Angela Lui and I call this the next black box ( Lui, 2017 ).

Black and Wiliam (1998) used the term black box to emphasize the fact that what happened in most classrooms was largely unknown: all we knew was that some inputs (e.g., teachers, resources, standards, and requirements) were fed into the box, and that certain outputs (e.g., more knowledgeable and competent students, acceptable levels of achievement) would follow. But what, they asked, is happening inside, and what new inputs will produce better outputs? Black and Wiliam's review spawned a great deal of research on formative assessment, some but not all of which suggests a positive relationship with academic achievement ( Bennett, 2011 ; Kingston and Nash, 2011 ). To better understand why and how the use of formative assessment in general and self-assessment in particular is associated with improvements in academic achievement in some instances but not others, we need research that looks into the next black box: the cognitive and affective mechanisms of students who are engaged in assessment processes ( Lui, 2017 ).

The role of internal mechanisms has been discussed in theory but not yet fully tested. Crooks (1988) argued that the impact of assessment is influenced by students' interpretation of the tasks and results, and Butler and Winne (1995) theorized that both cognitive and affective processes play a role in determining how feedback is internalized and used to self-regulate learning. Other theoretical frameworks about the internal processes of receiving and responding to feedback have been developed (e.g., Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006 ; Draper, 2009 ; Andrade, 2013 ; Lipnevich et al., 2016 ). Yet, Shute (2008) noted in her review of the literature on formative feedback that “despite the plethora of research on the topic, the specific mechanisms relating feedback to learning are still mostly murky, with very few (if any) general conclusions” (p. 156). This area is ripe for research.

Self-assessment is the act of monitoring one's processes and products in order to make adjustments that deepen learning and enhance performance. Although it can be summative, the evidence presented in this review strongly suggests that self-assessment is most beneficial, in terms of both achievement and self-regulated learning, when it is used formatively and supported by training.

What is not yet clear is why and how self-assessment works. Those of you who like to investigate phenomena that are maddeningly difficult to measure will rejoice to hear that the cognitive and affective mechanisms of self-assessment are the next black box. Studies of the ways in which learners think and feel, the interactions between their thoughts and feelings and their context, and the implications for pedagogy will make major contributions to our field.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2019.00087/full#supplementary-material

1. ^ I am grateful to my graduate assistants, Joanna Weaver and Taja Young, for conducting the searches.

Admiraal, W., Huisman, B., and Pilli, O. (2015). Assessment in massive open online courses. Electron. J. e-Learning , 13, 207–216.

Google Scholar

Alaoutinen, S. (2012). Evaluating the effect of learning style and student background on self-assessment accuracy. Comput. Sci. Educ. 22, 175–198. doi: 10.1080/08993408.2012.692924

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Al-Rawahi, N. M., and Al-Balushi, S. M. (2015). The effect of reflective science journal writing on students' self-regulated learning strategies. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Educ. 10, 367–379. doi: 10.12973/ijese.2015.250a

Andrade, H. (2010). “Students as the definitive source of formative assessment: academic self-assessment and the self-regulation of learning,” in Handbook of Formative Assessment , eds H. Andrade and G. Cizek (New York, NY: Routledge, 90–105.

Andrade, H. (2013). “Classroom assessment in the context of learning theory and research,” in Sage Handbook of Research on Classroom Assessment , ed J. H. McMillan (New York, NY: Sage), 17–34. doi: 10.4135/9781452218649.n2

Andrade, H. (2018). “Feedback in the context of self-assessment,” in Cambridge Handbook of Instructional Feedback , eds A. Lipnevich and J. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 376–408.

PubMed Abstract

Andrade, H., and Boulay, B. (2003). The role of rubric-referenced self-assessment in learning to write. J. Educ. Res. 97, 21–34. doi: 10.1080/00220670309596625

Andrade, H., and Brookhart, S. (2019). Classroom assessment as the co-regulation of learning. Assessm. Educ. Principles Policy Pract. doi: 10.1080/0969594X.2019.1571992

Andrade, H., and Brookhart, S. M. (2016). “The role of classroom assessment in supporting self-regulated learning,” in Assessment for Learning: Meeting the Challenge of Implementation , eds D. Laveault and L. Allal (Heidelberg: Springer), 293–309. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-39211-0_17

Andrade, H., and Du, Y. (2007). Student responses to criteria-referenced self-assessment. Assess. Evalu. High. Educ. 32, 159–181. doi: 10.1080/02602930600801928

Andrade, H., Du, Y., and Mycek, K. (2010). Rubric-referenced self-assessment and middle school students' writing. Assess. Educ. 17, 199–214. doi: 10.1080/09695941003696172

Andrade, H., Du, Y., and Wang, X. (2008). Putting rubrics to the test: The effect of a model, criteria generation, and rubric-referenced self-assessment on elementary school students' writing. Educ. Meas. 27, 3–13. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3992.2008.00118.x

Andrade, H., and Valtcheva, A. (2009). Promoting learning and achievement through self- assessment. Theory Pract. 48, 12–19. doi: 10.1080/00405840802577544

Andrade, H., Wang, X., Du, Y., and Akawi, R. (2009). Rubric-referenced self-assessment and self-efficacy for writing. J. Educ. Res. 102, 287–302. doi: 10.3200/JOER.102.4.287-302

Andrade, H. L., and Brown, G. T. L. (2016). “Student self-assessment in the classroom,” in Handbook of Human and Social Conditions in Assessment , eds G. T. L. Brown and L. R. Harris (New York, NY: Routledge), 319–334.

PubMed Abstract | Google Scholar

Baars, M., Vink, S., van Gog, T., de Bruin, A., and Paas, F. (2014). Effects of training self-assessment and using assessment standards on retrospective and prospective monitoring of problem solving. Learn. Instruc. 33, 92–107. doi: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2014.04.004

Balderas, I., and Cuamatzi, P. M. (2018). Self and peer correction to improve college students' writing skills. Profile. 20, 179–194. doi: 10.15446/profile.v20n2.67095

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control . New York, NY: Freeman.

Barney, S., Khurum, M., Petersen, K., Unterkalmsteiner, M., and Jabangwe, R. (2012). Improving students with rubric-based self-assessment and oral feedback. IEEE Transac. Educ. 55, 319–325. doi: 10.1109/TE.2011.2172981

Baxter, P., and Norman, G. (2011). Self-assessment or self deception? A lack of association between nursing students' self-assessment and performance. J. Adv. Nurs. 67, 2406–2413. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2011.05658.x

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Bennett, R. E. (2011). Formative assessment: a critical review. Assess. Educ. 18, 5–25. doi: 10.1080/0969594X.2010.513678

Birjandi, P., and Hadidi Tamjid, N. (2012). The role of self-, peer and teacher assessment in promoting Iranian EFL learners' writing performance. Assess. Evalu. High. Educ. 37, 513–533. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2010.549204

Bjork, R. A., Dunlosky, J., and Kornell, N. (2013). Self-regulated learning: beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 64, 417–444. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143823

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., and Wiliam, D. (2003). Assessment for Learning: Putting it into Practice . Berkshire: Open University Press.

Black, P., and Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan 80, 139–144; 146–148.

Blanch-Hartigan, D. (2011). Medical students' self-assessment of performance: results from three meta-analyses. Patient Educ. Counsel. 84, 3–9. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2010.06.037

Bol, L., Hacker, D. J., Walck, C. C., and Nunnery, J. A. (2012). The effects of individual or group guidelines on the calibration accuracy and achievement of high school biology students. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 37, 280–287. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2012.02.004

Boud, D. (1995a). Implementing Student Self-Assessment, 2nd Edn. Australian Capital Territory: Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia.

Boud, D. (1995b). Enhancing Learning Through Self-Assessment. London: Kogan Page.

Boud, D. (1999). Avoiding the traps: Seeking good practice in the use of self-assessment and reflection in professional courses. Soc. Work Educ. 18, 121–132. doi: 10.1080/02615479911220131

Boud, D., and Brew, A. (1995). Developing a typology for learner self-assessment practices. Res. Dev. High. Educ. 18, 130–135.

Bourke, R. (2014). Self-assessment in professional programmes within tertiary institutions. Teach. High. Educ. 19, 908–918. doi: 10.1080/13562517.2014.934353

Bourke, R. (2016). Liberating the learner through self-assessment. Cambridge J. Educ. 46, 97–111. doi: 10.1080/0305764X.2015.1015963

Brown, G., Andrade, H., and Chen, F. (2015). Accuracy in student self-assessment: directions and cautions for research. Assess. Educ. 22, 444–457. doi: 10.1080/0969594X.2014.996523

Brown, G. T., and Harris, L. R. (2013). “Student self-assessment,” in Sage Handbook of Research on Classroom Assessment , ed J. H. McMillan (Los Angeles, CA: Sage), 367–393. doi: 10.4135/9781452218649.n21

Brown, G. T. L., and Harris, L. R. (2014). The future of self-assessment in classroom practice: reframing self-assessment as a core competency. Frontline Learn. Res. 3, 22–30. doi: 10.14786/flr.v2i1.24

Butler, D. L., and Winne, P. H. (1995). Feedback and self-regulated learning: a theoretical synthesis. Rev. Educ. Res. 65, 245–281. doi: 10.3102/00346543065003245

Butler, Y. G. (2018). “Young learners' processes and rationales for responding to self-assessment items: cases for generic can-do and five-point Likert-type formats,” in Useful Assessment and Evaluation in Language Education , eds J. Davis et al. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press), 21–39. doi: 10.2307/j.ctvvngrq.5

CrossRef Full Text

Chang, C.-C., Liang, C., and Chen, Y.-H. (2013). Is learner self-assessment reliable and valid in a Web-based portfolio environment for high school students? Comput. Educ. 60, 325–334. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2012.05.012

Chang, C.-C., Tseng, K.-H., and Lou, S.-J. (2012). A comparative analysis of the consistency and difference among teacher-assessment, student self-assessment and peer-assessment in a Web-based portfolio assessment environment for high school students. Comput. Educ. 58, 303–320. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.005

Colliver, J., Verhulst, S, and Barrows, H. (2005). Self-assessment in medical practice: a further concern about the conventional research paradigm. Teach. Learn. Med. 17, 200–201. doi: 10.1207/s15328015tlm1703_1

Crooks, T. J. (1988). The impact of classroom evaluation practices on students. Rev. Educ. Res. 58, 438–481. doi: 10.3102/00346543058004438

de Bruin, A. B. H., and van Gog, T. (2012). Improving self-monitoring and self-regulation: From cognitive psychology to the classroom , Learn. Instruct. 22, 245–252. doi: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2012.01.003

De Grez, L., Valcke, M., and Roozen, I. (2012). How effective are self- and peer assessment of oral presentation skills compared with teachers' assessments? Active Learn. High. Educ. 13, 129–142. doi: 10.1177/1469787412441284

Dolosic, H. (2018). An examination of self-assessment and interconnected facets of second language reading. Read. Foreign Langu. 30, 189–208.

Draper, S. W. (2009). What are learners actually regulating when given feedback? Br. J. Educ. Technol. 40, 306–315. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00930.x

Dunlosky, J., and Ariel, R. (2011). “Self-regulated learning and the allocation of study time,” in Psychology of Learning and Motivation , Vol. 54 ed B. Ross (Cambridge, MA: Academic Press), 103–140. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385527-5.00004-8

Dunlosky, J., and Rawson, K. A. (2012). Overconfidence produces underachievement: inaccurate self evaluations undermine students' learning and retention. Learn. Instr. 22, 271–280. doi: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2011.08.003

Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York, NY: Random House.

Epstein, R. M., Siegel, D. J., and Silberman, J. (2008). Self-monitoring in clinical practice: a challenge for medical educators. J. Contin. Educ. Health Prof. 28, 5–13. doi: 10.1002/chp.149

Eva, K. W., and Regehr, G. (2008). “I'll never play professional football” and other fallacies of self-assessment. J. Contin. Educ. Health Prof. 28, 14–19. doi: 10.1002/chp.150

Falchikov, N. (2005). Improving Assessment Through Student Involvement: Practical Solutions for Aiding Learning in Higher and Further Education . London: Routledge Falmer.

Fastre, G. M. J., van der Klink, M. R., Sluijsmans, D., and van Merrienboer, J. J. G. (2012). Drawing students' attention to relevant assessment criteria: effects on self-assessment skills and performance. J. Voc. Educ. Train. 64, 185–198. doi: 10.1080/13636820.2011.630537

Fastre, G. M. J., van der Klink, M. R., and van Merrienboer, J. J. G. (2010). The effects of performance-based assessment criteria on student performance and self-assessment skills. Adv. Health Sci. Educ. 15, 517–532. doi: 10.1007/s10459-009-9215-x

Fitzpatrick, B., and Schulz, H. (2016). “Teaching young students to self-assess critically,” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (Washington, DC).

Franken, A. S. (1992). I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone it, People Like Me! Daily affirmations by Stuart Smalley. New York, NY: Dell.

Glaser, C., and Brunstein, J. C. (2007). Improving fourth-grade students' composition skills: effects of strategy instruction and self-regulation procedures. J. Educ. Psychol. 99, 297–310. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.99.2.297

Gonida, E. N., and Leondari, A. (2011). Patterns of motivation among adolescents with biased and accurate self-efficacy beliefs. Int. J. Educ. Res. 50, 209–220. doi: 10.1016/j.ijer.2011.08.002

Graham, S., Hebert, M., and Harris, K. R. (2015). Formative assessment and writing. Elem. Sch. J. 115, 523–547. doi: 10.1086/681947

Guillory, J. J., and Blankson, A. N. (2017). Using recently acquired knowledge to self-assess understanding in the classroom. Sch. Teach. Learn. Psychol. 3, 77–89. doi: 10.1037/stl0000079

Hacker, D. J., Bol, L., Horgan, D. D., and Rakow, E. A. (2000). Test prediction and performance in a classroom context. J. Educ. Psychol. 92, 160–170. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.92.1.160

Harding, J. L., and Hbaci, I. (2015). Evaluating pre-service teachers math teaching experience from different perspectives. Univ. J. Educ. Res. 3, 382–389. doi: 10.13189/ujer.2015.030605

Harris, K. R., Graham, S., Mason, L. H., and Friedlander, B. (2008). Powerful Writing Strategies for All Students . Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

Harris, L. R., and Brown, G. T. L. (2013). Opportunities and obstacles to consider when using peer- and self-assessment to improve student learning: case studies into teachers' implementation. Teach. Teach. Educ. 36, 101–111. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2013.07.008

Hattie, J., and Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Rev. Educ. Res. 77, 81–112. doi: 10.3102/003465430298487

Hawe, E., and Parr, J. (2014). Assessment for learning in the writing classroom: an incomplete realization. Curr. J. 25, 210–237. doi: 10.1080/09585176.2013.862172

Hawkins, S. C., Osborne, A., Schofield, S. J., Pournaras, D. J., and Chester, J. F. (2012). Improving the accuracy of self-assessment of practical clinical skills using video feedback: the importance of including benchmarks. Med. Teach. 34, 279–284. doi: 10.3109/0142159X.2012.658897

Huang, Y., and Gui, M. (2015). Articulating teachers' expectations afore: Impact of rubrics on Chinese EFL learners' self-assessment and speaking ability. J. Educ. Train. Stud. 3, 126–132. doi: 10.11114/jets.v3i3.753

Kaderavek, J. N., Gillam, R. B., Ukrainetz, T. A., Justice, L. M., and Eisenberg, S. N. (2004). School-age children's self-assessment of oral narrative production. Commun. Disord. Q. 26, 37–48. doi: 10.1177/15257401040260010401

Karnilowicz, W. (2012). A comparison of self-assessment and tutor assessment of undergraduate psychology students. Soc. Behav. Person. 40, 591–604. doi: 10.2224/sbp.2012.40.4.591

Kevereski, L. (2017). (Self) evaluation of knowledge in students' population in higher education in Macedonia. Res. Pedag. 7, 69–75. doi: 10.17810/2015.49

Kingston, N. M., and Nash, B. (2011). Formative assessment: a meta-analysis and a call for research. Educ. Meas. 30, 28–37. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3992.2011.00220.x

Kitsantas, A., and Zimmerman, B. J. (2006). Enhancing self-regulation of practice: the influence of graphing and self-evaluative standards. Metacogn. Learn. 1, 201–212. doi: 10.1007/s11409-006-9000-7

Kluger, A. N., and DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: a historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychol. Bull. 119, 254–284. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.254

Kollar, I., Fischer, F., and Hesse, F. (2006). Collaboration scripts: a conceptual analysis. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 18, 159–185. doi: 10.1007/s10648-006-9007-2

Kolovelonis, A., Goudas, M., and Dermitzaki, I. (2012). Students' performance calibration in a basketball dribbling task in elementary physical education. Int. Electron. J. Elem. Educ. 4, 507–517.

Koriat, A. (2012). The relationships between monitoring, regulation and performance. Learn. Instru. 22, 296–298. doi: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2012.01.002

Kostons, D., van Gog, T., and Paas, F. (2012). Training self-assessment and task-selection skills: a cognitive approach to improving self-regulated learning. Learn. Instruc. 22, 121–132. doi: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2011.08.004

Labuhn, A. S., Zimmerman, B. J., and Hasselhorn, M. (2010). Enhancing students' self-regulation and mathematics performance: the influence of feedback and self-evaluative standards Metacogn. Learn. 5, 173–194. doi: 10.1007/s11409-010-9056-2

Leach, L. (2012). Optional self-assessment: some tensions and dilemmas. Assess. Evalu. High. Educ. 37, 137–147. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2010.515013

Lew, M. D. N., Alwis, W. A. M., and Schmidt, H. G. (2010). Accuracy of students' self-assessment and their beliefs about its utility. Assess. Evalu. High. Educ. 35, 135–156. doi: 10.1080/02602930802687737

Lin-Siegler, X., Shaenfield, D., and Elder, A. D. (2015). Contrasting case instruction can improve self-assessment of writing. Educ. Technol. Res. Dev. 63, 517–537. doi: 10.1007/s11423-015-9390-9

Lipnevich, A. A., Berg, D. A. G., and Smith, J. K. (2016). “Toward a model of student response to feedback,” in The Handbook of Human and Social Conditions in Assessment , eds G. T. L. Brown and L. R. Harris (New York, NY: Routledge), 169–185.

Lopez, R., and Kossack, S. (2007). Effects of recurring use of self-assessment in university courses. Int. J. Learn. 14, 203–216. doi: 10.18848/1447-9494/CGP/v14i04/45277

Lopez-Pastor, V. M., Fernandez-Balboa, J.-M., Santos Pastor, M. L., and Aranda, A. F. (2012). Students' self-grading, professor's grading and negotiated final grading at three university programmes: analysis of reliability and grade difference ranges and tendencies. Assess. Evalu. High. Educ. 37, 453–464. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2010.545868

Lui, A. (2017). Validity of the responses to feedback survey: operationalizing and measuring students' cognitive and affective responses to teachers' feedback (Doctoral dissertation). University at Albany—SUNY: Albany NY.

Marks, M. B., Haug, J. C., and Hu, H. (2018). Investigating undergraduate business internships: do supervisor and self-evaluations differ? J. Educ. Bus. 93, 33–45. doi: 10.1080/08832323.2017.1414025

Memis, E. K., and Seven, S. (2015). Effects of an SWH approach and self-evaluation on sixth grade students' learning and retention of an electricity unit. Int. J. Prog. Educ. 11, 32–49.

Metcalfe, J., and Kornell, N. (2005). A region of proximal learning model of study time allocation. J. Mem. Langu. 52, 463–477. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2004.12.001

Meusen-Beekman, K. D., Joosten-ten Brinke, D., and Boshuizen, H. P. A. (2016). Effects of formative assessments to develop self-regulation among sixth grade students: results from a randomized controlled intervention. Stud. Educ. Evalu. 51, 126–136. doi: 10.1016/j.stueduc.2016.10.008

Micán, D. A., and Medina, C. L. (2017). Boosting vocabulary learning through self-assessment in an English language teaching context. Assess. Evalu. High. Educ. 42, 398–414. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2015.1118433

Miller, T. M., and Geraci, L. (2011). Training metacognition in the classroom: the influence of incentives and feedback on exam predictions. Metacogn. Learn. 6, 303–314. doi: 10.1007/s11409-011-9083-7

Murakami, C., Valvona, C., and Broudy, D. (2012). Turning apathy into activeness in oral communication classes: regular self- and peer-assessment in a TBLT programme. System 40, 407–420. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2012.07.003

Nagel, M., and Lindsey, B. (2018). The use of classroom clickers to support improved self-assessment in introductory chemistry. J. College Sci. Teach. 47, 72–79.

Ndoye, A. (2017). Peer/self-assessment and student learning. Int. J. Teach. Learn. High. Educ. 29, 255–269.

Nguyen, T., and Foster, K. A. (2018). Research note—multiple time point course evaluation and student learning outcomes in an MSW course. J. Soc. Work Educ. 54, 715–723. doi: 10.1080/10437797.2018.1474151

Nicol, D., and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Stud. High. Educ. 31, 199–218. doi: 10.1080/03075070600572090

Nielsen, K. (2014), Self-assessment methods in writing instruction: a conceptual framework, successful practices and essential strategies. J. Res. Read. 37, 1–16. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2012.01533.x.

Nowell, C., and Alston, R. M. (2007). I thought I got an A! Overconfidence across the economics curriculum. J. Econ. Educ. 38, 131–142. doi: 10.3200/JECE.38.2.131-142

Nugteren, M. L., Jarodzka, H., Kester, L., and Van Merriënboer, J. J. G. (2018). Self-regulation of secondary school students: self-assessments are inaccurate and insufficiently used for learning-task selection. Instruc. Sci. 46, 357–381. doi: 10.1007/s11251-018-9448-2

Panadero, E., and Alonso-Tapia, J. (2013). Self-assessment: theoretical and practical connotations. When it happens, how is it acquired and what to do to develop it in our students. Electron. J. Res. Educ. Psychol. 11, 551–576. doi: 10.14204/ejrep.30.12200

Panadero, E., Alonso-Tapia, J., and Huertas, J. A. (2012). Rubrics and self-assessment scripts effects on self-regulation, learning and self-efficacy in secondary education. Learn. Individ. Differ. 22, 806–813. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2012.04.007

Panadero, E., Alonso-Tapia, J., and Huertas, J. A. (2014). Rubrics vs. self-assessment scripts: effects on first year university students' self-regulation and performance. J. Study Educ. Dev. 3, 149–183. doi: 10.1080/02103702.2014.881655

Panadero, E., Alonso-Tapia, J., and Reche, E. (2013). Rubrics vs. self-assessment scripts effect on self-regulation, performance and self-efficacy in pre-service teachers. Stud. Educ. Evalu. 39, 125–132. doi: 10.1016/j.stueduc.2013.04.001

Panadero, E., Brown, G. L., and Strijbos, J.-W. (2016a). The future of student self-assessment: a review of known unknowns and potential directions. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 28, 803–830. doi: 10.1007/s10648-015-9350-2

Panadero, E., Jonsson, A., and Botella, J. (2017). Effects of self-assessment on self-regulated learning and self-efficacy: four meta-analyses. Educ. Res. Rev. 22, 74–98. doi: 10.1016/j.edurev.2017.08.004

Panadero, E., Jonsson, A., and Strijbos, J. W. (2016b). “Scaffolding self-regulated learning through self-assessment and peer assessment: guidelines for classroom implementation,” in Assessment for Learning: Meeting the Challenge of Implementation , eds D. Laveault and L. Allal (New York, NY: Springer), 311–326. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-39211-0_18

Panadero, E., and Romero, M. (2014). To rubric or not to rubric? The effects of self-assessment on self-regulation, performance and self-efficacy. Assess. Educ. 21, 133–148. doi: 10.1080/0969594X.2013.877872

Papanthymou, A., and Darra, M. (2018). Student self-assessment in higher education: The international experience and the Greek example. World J. Educ. 8, 130–146. doi: 10.5430/wje.v8n6p130

Punhagui, G. C., and de Souza, N. A. (2013). Self-regulation in the learning process: actions through self-assessment activities with Brazilian students. Int. Educ. Stud. 6, 47–62. doi: 10.5539/ies.v6n10p47

Raaijmakers, S. F., Baars, M., Paas, F., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., and van Gog, T. (2019). Metacognition and Learning , 1–22. doi: 10.1007/s11409-019-09189-5

Raaijmakers, S. F., Baars, M., Schapp, L., Paas, F., van Merrienboer, J., and van Gog, T. (2017). Training self-regulated learning with video modeling examples: do task-selection skills transfer? Instr. Sci. 46, 273–290. doi: 10.1007/s11251-017-9434-0

Ratminingsih, N. M., Marhaeni, A. A. I. N., and Vigayanti, L. P. D. (2018). Self-assessment: the effect on students' independence and writing competence. Int. J. Instruc. 11, 277–290. doi: 10.12973/iji.2018.11320a

Ross, J. A., Rolheiser, C., and Hogaboam-Gray, A. (1998). “Impact of self-evaluation training on mathematics achievement in a cooperative learning environment,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (San Diego, CA).

Ross, J. A., and Starling, M. (2008). Self-assessment in a technology-supported environment: the case of grade 9 geography. Assess. Educ. 15, 183–199. doi: 10.1080/09695940802164218

Samaie, M., Nejad, A. M., and Qaracholloo, M. (2018). An inquiry into the efficiency of whatsapp for self- and peer-assessments of oral language proficiency. Br. J. Educ. Technol. 49, 111–126. doi: 10.1111/bjet.12519

Sanchez, C. E., Atkinson, K. M., Koenka, A. C., Moshontz, H., and Cooper, H. (2017). Self-grading and peer-grading for formative and summative assessments in 3rd through 12th grade classrooms: a meta-analysis. J. Educ. Psychol. 109, 1049–1066. doi: 10.1037/edu0000190

Sargeant, J. (2008). Toward a common understanding of self-assessment. J. Contin. Educ. Health Prof. 28, 1–4. doi: 10.1002/chp.148

Sargeant, J., Mann, K., van der Vleuten, C., and Metsemakers, J. (2008). “Directed” self-assessment: practice and feedback within a social context. J. Contin. Educ. Health Prof. 28, 47–54. doi: 10.1002/chp.155

Shute, V. (2008). Focus on formative feedback. Rev. Educ. Res. 78, 153–189. doi: 10.3102/0034654307313795

Silver, I., Campbell, C., Marlow, B., and Sargeant, J. (2008). Self-assessment and continuing professional development: the Canadian perspective. J. Contin. Educ. Health Prof. 28, 25–31. doi: 10.1002/chp.152

Siow, L.-F. (2015). Students' perceptions on self- and peer-assessment in enhancing learning experience. Malaysian Online J. Educ. Sci. 3, 21–35.

Son, L. K., and Metcalfe, J. (2000). Metacognitive and control strategies in study-time allocation. J. Exp. Psychol. 26, 204–221. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.26.1.204

Tan, K. (2004). Does student self-assessment empower or discipline students? Assess. Evalu. Higher Educ. 29, 651–662. doi: 10.1080/0260293042000227209

Tan, K. (2009). Meanings and practices of power in academics' conceptions of student self-assessment. Teach. High. Educ. 14, 361–373. doi: 10.1080/13562510903050111

Taras, M. (2008). Issues of power and equity in two models of self-assessment. Teach. High. Educ. 13, 81–92. doi: 10.1080/13562510701794076

Tejeiro, R. A., Gomez-Vallecillo, J. L., Romero, A. F., Pelegrina, M., Wallace, A., and Emberley, E. (2012). Summative self-assessment in higher education: implications of its counting towards the final mark. Electron. J. Res. Educ. Psychol. 10, 789–812.

Thawabieh, A. M. (2017). A comparison between students' self-assessment and teachers' assessment. J. Curri. Teach. 6, 14–20. doi: 10.5430/jct.v6n1p14

Tulgar, A. T. (2017). Selfie@ssessment as an alternative form of self-assessment at undergraduate level in higher education. J. Langu. Linguis. Stud. 13, 321–335.

van Helvoort, A. A. J. (2012). How adult students in information studies use a scoring rubric for the development of their information literacy skills. J. Acad. Librarian. 38, 165–171. doi: 10.1016/j.acalib.2012.03.016

van Loon, M. H., de Bruin, A. B. H., van Gog, T., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., and Dunlosky, J. (2014). Can students evaluate their understanding of cause-and-effect relations? The effects of diagram completion on monitoring accuracy. Acta Psychol. 151, 143–154. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.06.007

van Reybroeck, M., Penneman, J., Vidick, C., and Galand, B. (2017). Progressive treatment and self-assessment: Effects on students' automatisation of grammatical spelling and self-efficacy beliefs. Read. Writing 30, 1965–1985. doi: 10.1007/s11145-017-9761-1

Wang, W. (2017). Using rubrics in student self-assessment: student perceptions in the English as a foreign language writing context. Assess. Evalu. High. Educ. 42, 1280–1292. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2016.1261993

Wollenschläger, M., Hattie, J., Machts, N., Möller, J., and Harms, U. (2016). What makes rubrics effective in teacher-feedback? Transparency of learning goals is not enough. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 44–45, 1–11. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2015.11.003

Yan, Z., and Brown, G. T. L. (2017). A cyclical self-assessment process: towards a model of how students engage in self-assessment. Assess. Evalu. High. Educ. 42, 1247–1262. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2016.1260091

Yilmaz, F. N. (2017). Reliability of scores obtained from self-, peer-, and teacher-assessments on teaching materials prepared by teacher candidates. Educ. Sci. 17, 395–409. doi: 10.12738/estp.2017.2.0098

Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Self-efficacy: an essential motive to learn. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 25, 82–91. doi: 10.1006/ceps.1999.1016

Zimmerman, B. J., and Schunk, D. H. (2011). “Self-regulated learning and performance: an introduction and overview,” in Handbook of Self-Regulation of Learning and Performance , eds B. J. Zimmerman and D. H. Schunk (New York, NY: Routledge), 1–14.

Keywords: self-assessment, self-evaluation, self-grading, formative assessment, classroom assessment, self-regulated learning (SRL)

Citation: Andrade HL (2019) A Critical Review of Research on Student Self-Assessment. Front. Educ. 4:87. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2019.00087

Received: 27 April 2019; Accepted: 02 August 2019; Published: 27 August 2019.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2019 Andrade. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Heidi L. Andrade, handrade@albany.edu

This article is part of the Research Topic

Advances in Classroom Assessment Theory and Practice

Self Assessment - Essay Examples And Topic Ideas For Free

Amongst the huge variety of essay topics, writing and analyzing yourself seems to be one of the most daunting tasks. Many students find it hard to provide self analysis, describe their experience, or underline their weaknesses and strengths. Such type of academic writing often is included in the educational program for college students. This is a kind of test for them to assess their lives: behavior, skill, preference, etc. It is much like in English classes when students learn to describe themselves or their friends by appearance, character, and hobby.

A self-assessment research paper is directed to a writer themselves. It consists of crucial parts like the introduction, body, and conclusion. It is crucial to describe a few traits of yours in your essay. To simplify your effort, there are some self-assessment essay examples for students. You can read, analyze them and draw your outline of a self-evaluation essay. Think about what skill or strong points you can share, but don’t forget about weak points as well. No one is perfect, and there is always room to grow and develop. We advise you to be honest with yourself when putting your self-estimation on paper. This will help you obtain a high appraisal and develop self-assessment skills. Self-assessment sample essays are handy for directing your composition in the right way.

Self Assessment: how to Learn about yourself

I have accomplished and learned so many skills and information during this course.I was taught how to compose and write different types of essays that I wasn't accustomed to. For example, memoirs and a literacy narratives are just a few to name. Writing papers was kind of hard at first because I never wrote papers like a memoir or literacy narrative but my professor made it much easier by emailing us the characteristics of each paper that we had to […]

Self Assessment and Professional Growth

Nurse educators who initiate the core competencies provided by the National League for Nursing (NLN) can create a nursing curriculum that will provide quality educational training for the next generation of all healthcare providers throughout. The National League for Nursing (2018), states the core competencies promote excellence in the advanced specialty role of the academic nurse educator; which nursing education is considered a specialty area of practice. According to Halstead and Frank (2018), the educators in nursing professional development also […]

Self-Assessment for Cultural Competence

Culture can refer to characteristics such as age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, income level, education, geographical location or profession. Cultural competency can be defined as the ability of providers and organizations to effectively deliver health care services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients. Many people get the term cultural competency confused with Diversity Consciousness, but they are actually not the same. Cultural competency is taking that extra step beyond acknowledging people's differences and learning about […]

We will write an essay sample crafted to your needs.

Personality Self Assessment

In this paper, I will be assessing my personality using three of the approaches/ theories I have learned in class. The first approach to my personality I will be using is the Psychoanalytic Approach. I will be basing my analysis on the Neo-Freudian, Erik Erikson's Eight Stages of Development theory. The second approach I will be using is the Biological Approach. Finally, the last approach I have chosen to apply to my personality analysis is the Trait Approach. In summary, […]

Relationships Among Mental Health, Self Assessment and Physical Health

People with mental or physical disabilities seem to always be overlooked by society. Authors Hannah Tough, Johannes Siegrist, and Christine Fekete wrote "Social relationships, mental health and wellbeing in physical disability: a systematic review," published in 2017 in BMC Public Health. They state that one of the major negative impacts on mental health is poor social relationships. The authors began by giving a detailed background on the personal facts about the article. They have figures, tables, and charts to support […]

Liberal Arts Self-Assessment

As a student at a liberal arts college, there stands a requirement to accumulate a minimum number of course credit hours that expose oneself to the four breadth areas: art/expression, social/civic, science/description, and value/meaning. The four breadth areas are meant to shed light on, demonstrate, and give insight on applying education to varying life experiences. These areas of study, each with a unique focus, create a well-rounded education that prepares the student for real-world involvement. Where Growth Has Occurred It […]

Does Hairfashion Can Influence on a Self Assessment

For decades, women have used their hair to express their social status, heritage, and identity. It is a significant part of who we are and how we express ourselves. A societal group I identify with is women in the African American natural hair community. My journey is fairly new, and I am still learning how to embrace this cultural concept. My greatest hurdle is the feeling of anxiety over wearing my natural hair due to potential discrimination and the evaluation […]

How Trophies Can Help Motivate People Raising Low Self Assessment

Have you ever played a game like football and only wanted the trophy? Giving people, especially kids, what they really crave through playing is the trophy, which they receive at the end of the season. All kids love winning prizes; a big trophy would be a fantastic reward for them. A trophy can boost your confidence and drive your motivation in tough times. It's something worth investing in, which could inspire ongoing participation and perseverance, even in the face of […]

Communication Skills Quiz: a Self-Assessment

Before taking the quiz How Good Are Your Communication Skills? I believed myself to be an excellent communicator. Since I speak to many people daily for my employment, I have always prided myself on being able to speak well and effectively communicate with others. Therefore, I was surprised when I took the quiz, after answering the questions truthfully, that it determined that I was just a "capable" communicator. My score was 45 out of 75 and I thought that I […]

The Role of Low Self Assessment to Depression

Most people in our country do, from time to time, feel bad about themselves, and these feelings of low self-assessment may get triggered by recent or past maltreatment or personal judgments. Low self-assessment keeps you from enjoying life, pursuing the things you want to do, and achieving personal goals. This is typical. However, it can be a constant companion for many, particularly those who are experiencing depression. There's a strong relationship between low self-assessment and depression, but the nature of […]

Self Assessment Toward Educational Environment

The educational climate surrounding students is considered one of the factors determining academic success. Students and teachers have become aware of the 'educational environment' of their institution. Nursing science courses in Alexandria University and King Abd El Aziz University employ a combination of traditional classroom and clinical learning methods. However, there is a scarcity of empirical evidence that evaluates this balance or the way nursing students perceive its delivery. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate nursing students' self-assessment toward the […]

Leadership Self-Assessment

At times, society defines a leader based on a position of authority. It is common to forget that a leader may be a peer, manager, or family member. As a nursing student, the writer has often thought about the different ways she can better her leadership skills. In order to be an effective leader, it is important to assess the ways that she visualizes problem-solving and team effort. The writer underwent a series of assessments that helped define her leadership […]

The Importance of Self Assessment in Organizational Behavior

"Organizational behavior is the actions and attitudes of individuals and groups towards one another and the organization as a whole, and its effect on the organization's functioning and performance." Before taking this course, I had never given much importance to the actions and attitudes that should be shared within an organization. However, through this course, I realized that organizational behavior is a whole field within itself that has constant research going on among various countries, to understand the effects of […]

Gallup’s Strengthsfinder Self-assessment Test: Responsibility, Belief, Futuristic, Developer, and Harmony

Introduction Gallup’s StrengthsFinder self-assessment test helps people discover what they naturally do best, learn ways to develop their greatest strengths, and improve self-awareness. (Gallup, 2019) This test identified my top five themes to be responsibility, belief, futuristic, developer, and harmony. The following paper summarizes my StrengthsFinder results and compares my results to the cognitive factors related to leadership effectiveness. I also share examples that explain how my leadership strengths contribute to the success of the organization with which I am […]

Self-Assessment Genogram Comprehensive Assessment

Introduction Taking social work practice with family I have learned about the family system. I have understood the key elements, being able to know how to engage, empower and coming into a mutual agreement with families through the decision and goal making process. Most important that was talked in class the development of a relationship between parents and service providers, by building mutual trust, respect, and an open communication and focusing on solution by noticing the strength capacity of the […]

Self-Assessment Tests

Personal assessment is one of the key elements that ensure people are making improvements in all dimensions of life which includes but not limited to being focused in life, manage life challenges, balance work and family activities, as well as produce good results at work place. Companies generating such tests is one step that would ensure that they have a deeper understanding of the weaknesses, strengths as well as threats that the staff show while in working. Discussed below is […]

Nursing Self-Evaluation Essay: an Ongoing Journey Toward Excellence and Growth

With its dynamic nature and constant evolution, the healthcare industry requires professionals to be on their toes. Within this vast industry, nurses stand at the forefront of patient care, bridging the gap between patients and physicians. As such, it becomes imperative for nurses to engage in regular self-evaluation, ensuring they remain at the peak of their proficiency and continue to provide optimal care. The Imperative of Self-Evaluation in Nursing At its core, self-evaluation is more than just an assessment; it's […]

Self-assessment Analysis

In the field of social work there are five core cardinal values that have been created by the National Association of Social Workers. These values reflect the ethical principles which include the access to resources, dignity and worth, interpersonal relationships, integrity, and the value of competence. One core value principle that I would like to explore in this paper is the value of interpersonal relationships. In the field of social work, the interpersonal relationships that are created and maintained are […]

Upload Assignment: Final Project – Part I: Final Self-Assessment

Your final reflective project is the same as the two formative self-assessments you have done, but covers the whole scope of the semester. You should create a concise (no longer than 6 pages, single-spaced) self-assessment document using word processing software that addresses your learning in the course. Be sure to go back and re-read your initial experiences, essay, and goals so that you can compare where you are now to where you were at the beginning of the semester. Evidence […]

Additional Example Essays

The Meaning of Being Human
Social Media and Body Image Essay
Reasons Why I Want to Study Abroad
Socioautobiography Choices and Experiences Growing up
A Class Divided
“Allegory of the Cave”
Cinderella Marxism
Failures and success in business
Is the Experience of Being an Outsider Universal Human Desire for Acceptance
Levels of Leadership in the Army: A Comprehensive Analysis
Causes of Teenage Pregnancy
Privacy Issues with Social Media

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

Helping Students Thrive by Using Self-Assessment

As a teacher, when you design a lesson or unit, you design it with the hope that everything will go according to plan, your students will learn the content, and they’ll be ready to move on to the next concept. If you’ve been a teacher for more than a day or two, however, you know that this often isn’t the case.

Some students will pick up the information and quickly get bored while others will be lost and quickly fall behind. And sometimes, the lesson will fall flat and none of your students will understand much of anything.

Other times, a lesson will work really well with one group of students, but it will flop with another. This is all just par for the course with teaching, and you never know what you’re going to get on any given day.

Thankfully, there is a way you can make your lessons better, more achievable, and more appropriate for all students. The solution is to teach them how to use self-assessment.

Self-assessment is one of those “teach a man to fish” concepts–once students understand how to self-assess, they’ll be more equipped to learn in all aspects of their life. At the very basic level, self assessment is simple: students need to think:

What was I supposed to learn?
Did I learn it?
What questions do I still have?

This formative assessment helps students and teachers understand where they’re at in their learning. The more students learn to do this at your direction and the more techniques they have to self-assess, the more likely they are to inherently do it on their own.

What does self-assessment look like?

Self-assessment can take many forms, and it can be very quick and informal, or it might be more structured and important. In essence though, self assessment looks like students pausing to examine what they do and don’t know. However, if you simply say, “OK, class, time to self-assess,” you’ll likely be met with blank stares.

The more you’re able to walk students through strategies for self-assessment, the more they’ll understand the purpose, process, and value of thinking about their learning. For the best results to reach the most students, aim to incorporate different types of self-assessment, just as you aim to incorporate different ways of teaching into your lessons.

Why self-assessment works

One of the reasons self-assessment is so effective is because it helps students stay within their zone of proximal development when they’re learning. In this zone, students are being challenged, which means they’re learning, but they’re not being pushed too hard into frustration.

The reason this is so helpful is because teachers can see anywhere from 15-150+ students every day, so it’s hard for a teacher to know where every single student is at in his or her learning. Without stopping for self-assessment, it’s easy for a teacher to move on before students are ready or to belabor a concept students mastered days ago.

When students are able to self-assess, they take control of their learning and realize when they need to ask more questions or spend more time working on a concept. Self-assessment that is relayed back to the teacher, either formally or informally, helps the teacher get a better idea of where students are at with their learning.

Another benefit of self-assessment is that students tend to take more ownership and find more value in their learning, according to a study out of Duquesne University. According to the study, formative assessments like self-assessment “give students the means, motive, and opportunity to take control of their own learning.” When teachers give students those opportunities, they empower their students and help turn them into active, rather than passive learners.

Self-assessment also helps students practice learning independently, which is a key skill for life, and especially for students who are pursuing higher education.

How to execute self assessment

To truly make this part of your classroom, you’ll need to explain to students what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and you’ll need to hold them accountable for their self assessment. The following steps can help you successfully set up self-assessment in your classroom.

Step 1: Explain what self-assessment is and why it’s important

Sometimes teachers have a tendency to surprise students with what’s coming next or to not explain the reasoning behind a teaching strategy or decision. While this is often done out of a desire for control and power as the leader of the classroom, it doesn’t do much to help students and their learning.

If students don’t understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, they usually won’t do it at all, or will just to the bare minimum to go through the motions and get the grade. If students don’t understand the purpose of a learning strategy, they often see it as busy work. Most students are very used to being assessed only by their teachers, so they may not understand why they’re suddenly being asked to take stock of their own learning.

Make sure you take the time to explain why you’re implementing this new learning strategy and how it is going to directly benefit them. That explanation is going to vary based on the age of your students and other factors, but you can give students some variation of the explanation of why self-assessment works above.

Step 2: Always show a model

As you scroll down, you’ll see that we give you some examples of ways to use self assessment; each time you try one of these new techniques, be sure to create an exemplar model for your students. If you want this to work, students need to know what the goal that they’re working toward looks like.

Depending on the type of self-assessment you’re working with, a simple model might be enough, or students might need to practice with the work of others. A low stakes way to start this out is with examples from past students. Pull out an old project from years past and have students assess the project as if it were their own.

Once students learn how to be respectful and constructive with this peer assessment, they can practice with the peers in their class. Including this step often makes it easier for students to assess their own work. It can be hard to look back at your own work or thought process, especially if not much time has passed since you did the work.

Step 3: Teach students different strategies of self-assessment

We all learn best by doing, so rather than just giving students a list of self-assessment strategies, take your time walking through different strategies together. Also remember that the strategy that works best for Jimmy might not work well for Susan, so the more you can diversify self-assessment for your students, the more students you’re going to be able to reach.

Try starting with just one type of self assessment, give students time to master that type, then add another type. As time goes on, you can offer students choice in the type of self-assessment they want to use.

Step 4: Practice

Before you ask students to actively assess their own work, let them practice with some low stakes examples. It’s hard for many people to critique themselves and to recognize they have room for improvement, yet it’s essential.

Give students some examples of work from past students (names always removed) and walk through “self” assessment with those examples together as a class.

Step 5: Create a way to hold students accountable

Self-assessment shouldn’t always be tied to a grade, but students will catch on quickly if you’re not somehow holding them accountable. There are many ways to do this, for example:

Conference with each student throughout the process
Make self-assessment part of the final grade for a project or unit
Create a self-assessment reward chart

The important thing to remember with holding students accountable for their self-assessment is that you should be holding them accountable for doing the self-assessment, but not for what they do or don’t know, nor for the changes they make based on their self-assessment.

Step 6: Don’t stop

Sometimes we have a tendency to try a strategy once or twice and then let it slide as the school year goes on, but as students learn that they’re no longer being held accountable, they will stop. You can’t ever assume a student will keep using a strategy unless you give them explicit instructions and hold them accountable.

Remember that as with anything, students will get better at self-assessment the more they practice it. The more you explicitly assign self-assessment, the more it will become a normal part of the learning process.

Examples of self assessment

Remember that it’s good to use a variety of self-assessment strategies so all students have a chance to find a style that works best for them. Any time you introduce a new strategy or assign self-assessment, be very clear about what students should do and how they should do it.

The strategies we suggest are broken down by age, but always use your best judgment regarding which strategies will be best for your students.

KWL chart: Before starting a lesson or unit, have students write or say what they already know (K) and what they want to know (W) about the topic. After the lesson or unit, they write or say what they learned (L). This can easily evolve into larger discussions and assignments.

Goals: At the end of each lesson, day, week, etc. students write one learning goal they would like to achieve. This can be very open-ended, or it could be very focused, asking students to reflect on one specific subject or topic. You can expand on this by having students return to their goal to see if they met it, encouraging them to ask for help if they haven’t met their goal.

Red, yellow, green: Give each student three circles: one red, one yellow, and one green. Throughout the school day, students place their red circle on their desk if they’re lost or confused, yellow if they’re struggling a little bit, and green if they understand, and they’re good to go. You can also stop to have students check their understanding by asking them to hold up a color. Some students feel shy about admitting they’re confused, so this strategy can also work really well if you have students place their heads down before holding up their circle.

Objective check: In the morning, give students a list of objectives you will cover in school today. Have each student write down an objective they would really like to learn today. At the end of the day, students return to the objective and determine whether they learned it or not.

Tricky spots: Work with students to identify where they struggle (for example, “I have trouble with word problems in math,” or “I have trouble spelling new words”). When starting a new lesson or unit, have each student identify one tricky spot they want to focus on. Be sure to check in with students often on their tricky spot to make sure they are making progress and not getting frustrated.

Highlighting: Have students go back to a writing assignment, worksheet, or project and highlight the section that they think was their best work. As an extension, have them explain why this was their best work. This is an excellent strategy to use with students who struggle or lack confidence in their work.

Self reflection: After a speech or presentation, have students write down three things they did well and one thing they can improve on. Extend this by returning to these during the next speech or presentation; you could even make them part of the rubric for the next assignment.

Exit tickets: Before students can leave the room, they must fill out an exit ticket and hand it to the teacher. You might ask them to write one thing they learned today and one thing they want to learn tomorrow, for example.

Think, pair, share: Pose a reflective question or prompt to students, for example you might tell them to think about or even write down the most important thing they learned in class today. Next, have them pair with a partner or small group to discuss their answer to the question or prompt, and finally, have students report back to the whole class.

Grades 9-12

Rubrics: Before completing a project, give students the rubric you will use to grade their effort. Have students complete a draft of the project and assess themselves using the rubric. After they do this, you might conference with them, give them feedback, or have them complete a reflective assignment. Then, have students complete a second draft that they will turn in for their grade (or to continue to work and improve upon).

Writing conferences: After students write an outline or first draft of an essay, hold an individual conference with each student. Before you provide your input, have students identify the strengths and weaknesses of their work. Use their self assessment as the guide of what you discuss during the conference. You might even find that students are more critical of themselves than you would have been.

Empty rubrics: At the beginning of a project, leave a space on the rubric empty. Help each student fill in the empty spot with something they need to work on, whether it’s something that they’re already good at and want to get even better or it’s something they struggle with and want to get better at.

Teach. Learn. Grow.

Teach. learn. grow. the education blog.

The importance of student self-assessment

Want to know a secret? I didn’t mean to become a secondary ELA teacher. One of the reasons why an ELA endorsement wasn’t originally at the top of my list was this persistent worry: How does one keep up with marking and grading all those ELA assignments? I do love a good challenge, though, so despite my concerns, I jumped into the adventure, and I am so glad that I did.

Over time, I faced that ELA assignment volume fear. Through support from mentors, observations of experts, and practice in professional development settings, I learned how to embed student self-assessment into learning processes so that my workload concerns were alleviated. More importantly, my students were able to build metacognition and self-efficacy skills .

I don’t want to give the impression that learning how to embed self-assessment processes was smooth or linear, or that the process is complete for me. There was trial and error, zigs and zags, and I am still learning how to improve my practice. I hope that sharing the things I’ve learned along the way can bring relief and support you in your work.

The topic of student self-assessment is huge, so for the purposes of this blog post, I will focus on three things that I’ve learned along the way. If you want to know more about the components and benefits of self-assessment, check out this short Dylan Wiliam video . I also encourage you to read Heidi Andrade’s “A critical review of research on student self-assessment.” She asks and answers several key questions about self-assessment including, “What is self-assessment?” and “Why self-assess?” She also digs into how it relates to feedback.

1. Reflect on your role

When I first started teaching, I was prepared to operate as a learner-manager instead of a learner-empowerer. As a learner-manager ELA teacher, I would give directions for an essay, set a due date, collect essays, take hours to mark and grade the essays, and then hand back the papers. Inevitably I would be frustrated when students ignored my marks or tossed out the paper, only to ask how to raise their grade at the end of the quarter. Ugh! Wasn’t this precisely why I hadn’t planned on being an ELA teacher?

Authentic, meaningful, and effective student self-assessment requires participants to be honest and vulnerable.

Slowly I came to understand how important it was for me to make the shift from thinking of myself as a learner-manager (an “I say it. You do it” approach) to thinking of myself as a learner-empowerer (a “How do I partner with my students to build knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy throughout the learning journey?” approach). (For more about learner-manager versus learner-empowerer as well as information about the connections to equity and a trauma-informed practice, see my post “6 ways to help heal toxic stress, trauma, and inequity in your virtual or in-person classroom” .)

Once I committed to being a learner-empowerer, my actions followed suit. I engineered learning goal paths that made students active agents in the learning processes. For example, I built in small, quick opportunities to practice self-assessing along the way so that by the time we arrived at an end point, students’ work was solid and they could reflect on the goal or explain a grade. More on that in the next tip.

2. Use reliable strategies, processes, and tools

Here are four “moves”—examples of specific actions I learned to embed in learning processes—that I think can help you as you consider the role of self-assessment in your classroom.

Nurture a community of learning

Authentic, meaningful, and effective student self-assessment requires participants to be honest and vulnerable. I had to deliberately foster a safe, respectful, and inclusive learning environment. In my blog post “5 little things that are really big” I explain specific ways to partner with students to make this happen. My colleague Cara Holt outlines 10 useful community-building strategies in her blog post, and another colleague, Vicki McCoy, explores self-assessment and metacognition in “How formative assessment boosts metacognition—and learning.”

Reallocate time and energy

Early in my teaching career, I was hesitant to fully dive into processes for successful student self-assessment. It felt like the learning experiences in a lesson or unit would take longer if I did because of the need to make room for the exercises that make self-assessment fruitful, such as clarifying goals, using examples, and engaging in peer feedback. I had to trust that reworking how I used teaching and learning time would pay off in the end, and it did.

By making time in the lesson or unit for the short, frequent exercises that make self-assessment successful, I spent less time tracking down unfinished work and nagging students about revisions. I also ultimately saved time grading. Once my students and I got the hang of self-assessment processes, students could reflect on the learning goals and articulate their grade rationale—and they were usually right on! No more frustration of unread markups and ignored grades.

Use examples of work

Self-assessment is even more fruitful when students can process examples of work that illustrate the learning goals and success criteria. In other words, for meaningful self-assessment, we had to work to make sure there was a solid foundation of understanding about examples and how to use the examples as a guide. After creating that solid understanding of success through examples, my students and I could take next steps with effective self, peer, and teacher feedback, which ultimately led to successful self-assessment.

I learned to start with strong examples so that students were sure to have a sound reference for what the end result should look like. Sometimes I could access these examples from the provided curriculum materials or from previous students; sometimes I made the examples myself, especially if the learning goals or path to the learning goals were specific to my students’ motivations and interests.

If my students were working on a learning goal (such as building argumentation claims and counterclaims) expressed in a multi-step product (such as a multiple paragraph argument), we would process a whole example. We would also examine specific pieces (e.g., paragraphs or even sentences). The students and I would look for the success criteria together using processes that aligned to the learning goal(s). For instance, if we were working on argumentation learning goals, we would use an argument rubric to guide our processing of the example, usually a few parts of the rubric at a time. This practice set forth the words and procedures for effective teacher, self, and peer feedback grounded in concrete illustrations of the learning goals and success criteria. With the provided examples, we could practice a feedback strategy such as Stars (strengths) and Stairs (next steps): Using the language of the rubric, what is a strength of this argumentation example? Using the language of the rubric, what is a next step for this argumentation example? Students had plenty of practice with the strategy first for processing examples, then for practicing feedback, and finally as a frame for self-assessment: Using the language of the rubric, what is a strength of your argumentation? Using the language of the rubric, what is a next step for your argumentation?

Figuring out the self-assessment strategies, processes, and tools that work best in partnership with your students is an ongoing expedition that requires time, patience, and a sense of humor.

Once a solid understanding of the end result and its pieces are established through sound examples, it can be fun to process silly non-examples with students. For example, one of my favorite silly non-examples to use when practicing reading and writing for information is a YouTube video of a dad following his children’s written instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich . You can even ask students to help you make those silly non-examples, which is another way for students to both become active partners in learning and internalize what does and does not illustrate the learning goal(s) and success criteria. Making time for processing examples and non-examples equips students with a clear picture of the end result and the frames for self-assessment success.

Include self-assessment prompts during the journey and at the end

For far too long, I would tell students to self-assess and hope that they followed through. Eventually I made it a habit to embed self-assessment prompts, space, and time directly on formative (practice) and summative materials.

When relevant, I would simply embed a one-sentence self-assessment frame (e.g., On a scale of 1–5, my claim sentence is currently a ___ because ___.) Other times it was better to prompt more than a one-sentence self-assessment (e.g., To self-assess your use of textual evidence to support your claim, please follow these steps: 1. In your draft, highlight where you used textual evidence to support your claim. 2. Based on the textual evidence that you used, circle your current level of skill on the provided rubric. 3. Use the information on the provided rubric to list one action you take to make your textual evidence even stronger.) The students and I would use their self-assessment answers to plan next steps, which sometimes looked like adjusting the lesson plan for the next day for more practice or making mixed groups for the next formative exercise.

For the summative task(s), I got into the habit of making sure to include student self-assessment as the last part of the experience. For instance, if there was a written or spoken product, after the conclusion sentence students would also self-assess using a provided frame. If the summative was a set of prompts or questions, the last prompt or question would be self-assessment.

3. Embrace the process

Figuring out the self-assessment strategies, processes, and tools that work best in partnership with your students is an ongoing expedition that requires time, patience, and a sense of humor. You’ll take steps forward, steps sideways, and steps back. It can get messy, but that’s normal. Authentic, human-centered learning is messy!

I encourage you to try one new thing at a time, celebrate quick wins, think of “failures” as learning opportunities, and lean on your students for their help. Be reassured that applying self-assessment practices is one of the most valuable parts of the learning process. For more on the value of student self-assessment, see the discussion section in “Examining the impact of self-assessment with the use of rubrics on primary school students’ performance.”

Suggested next steps

I encourage you to continue the journey of including students as active agents in the learning process. Growing in or expanding upon the practices listed here can help you continue that journey. In case you find them helpful, here are a few discussion questions that can guide your thinking about student self-assessment. Tackle them on your own or with a colleague.

Questions for teachers

What’s one student self-assessment strategy that you already use?
What’s one student self-assessment strategy that you would like to try?
What support do you need to try a new self-assessment strategy?
What will inspire you to keep up the hard work of embedding student self-assessment in the learning journey?

Recommended for you

What are classroom assessment standards, and how do they impact student learning?

3 tips for using data to drive instruction

Six commonly used MAP Growth terms worth knowing

Helping students grow

Students continue to rebound from pandemic school closures. NWEA® and Learning Heroes experts talk about how best to support them here on our blog, Teach. Learn. Grow.

See the post

Put the science of reading into action

The science of reading is not a buzzword. It’s the converging evidence of what matters and what works in literacy instruction. We can help you make it part of your practice.

Get the guide

Support teachers with PL

High-quality professional learning can help teachers feel invested—and supported—in their work.

Read the article

STAY CURRENT by subscribing to our newsletter

You are now signed up to receive our newsletter containing the latest news, blogs, and resources from nwea..

Student Reflection & Self-Assessment

4 ideas for building self-evaluation into the learning process

Project-based learning is a student-centered approach to learning, so it is natural to make student self-evaluation an integral part of the process.

Providing time for students to reflect on their work, helps them make connections to previous learning and experience. As Rachel Showalter observes, “students cannot truly improve their product without understanding the content.” Combining this opportunity to deepen learning through reflection with time to self-correct and improve, is an essential step towards meeting standards.

Many educators implementing a PBL or STEM approach use a design process that includes a specific Improve phase that asks students to stop, reflect, and evaluate their work with the intent of returning to the ideation phase to improve upon it.

image of the five steps of the engineering design process

Asking students to evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, progress, and growth, helps them more deeply understand the causes of their successes and failures and become aware of their learning. This also helps them see more clearly where to focus their energy to have the greatest impact. As they grow their metacognitive skills, students are better able to meet the challenges and thrive in directing their own learning.

Make sure students are clear on standards, learning, and project goals

Before you begin integrating reflection and self-assessment, make sure students have a clear definition or picture of what success looks like. A rubric or checklist can help provide students with criteria they can use to evaluate the success of their work and progress toward academic, personal, and social goals. Successful rubrics and checklists include criteria that provide specific actions students can take to improve their work.

Build in reflection time and procedures for self-assessment

Reflection and student self-assessment require time and are most successful when you add specific procedures for them during the learning process. Work in time for reflection, as well as time to improve their work based on the evaluation.

Here are a few ideas to help you integrate reflection and student self-assessment throughout the process of learning.

Daily Reflection Journals

One of the easiest ways to begin implementing reflection into your classroom is to have students keep a project journal or work log. Provide reflection prompts, or questions, like:

What new content knowledge did you learn today?
How did your effort contribute to your success?
What should you focus on next?

Reflection journals provide artifacts both you and your students can use to see and evaluate growth and progress.

image of sample STEM process reflection page

Download a sample Project Reflection page

If journaling seems like it will take too much classroom time, use the last 2 minutes of class for a 3-2-1 exit ticket .

Summative Self-Assessments

In addition to daily journaling, have students complete a summative self-assessment that asks them to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of their product or performance and evaluate their efforts during the development process. You might ask them to reflect on:

content knowledge gained.
project management, leadership, and other skills acquired.
obstacles and how they overcame them.
conflicts within a team and their resolution.
personal insights gained from product and process.

Written self-assessments are a natural part of the reflection process after students complete a project or performance. However, providing time to evaluate their work before it is complete, allows students to improve their work and honors that learning is an iterative process.

Peer Review and Feedback

While peer review may not seem like a form of self-evaluation, reviewing the work of others often helps students more clearly see errors and areas for improvement in their own work. Peer reviews that focus on effective writing, design, and communication provide a useful place to start.

Simply have students “turn-and-talk” with a classmate and complete a “warm and cool” form to direct their feedback.

image of worksheet to guide student feedback using warm and cool

Download a Warm and Cool Feedback sheet page

If students are presenting their work to a small group, provide reviewers with sentence starters to promote critical review and feedback:

You do a great job of …
I would love to see more …
Can you explain …
What if …

Employing peer reviews during the process with time after for editing, creates a learning culture of growth where students reflect on their work and the work of others and then do the work necessary to improve.

Digital Portfolios

If you want to get serious about integrating student reflection and self-assessment, asking students to craft portfolios of their learning throughout a school year is a must. A learning portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work, combined with reflections about the learning artifacts, that demonstrates student learning and growth over time.

image of the menu page of a student portfolio

For a portfolio to be a success, students need to be in charge of choosing the work they will include and tasked with explaining via text, audio, or video why it demonstrates growth.

Once again, providing a rubric or similar evaluation criteria will help students choose artifacts of learning and performances that correlate to learning goals, as well as provide a structure for their reflections.

In Conclusion

Reflecting helps students process and organize their learning. As they reflect, students observe how successful they have been during an activity. Then, they work to identify what they learned from their experience.

Combining your formative and summative assessments along with student’s self-reflections and peer reviews can help you paint a clearer picture of student growth and progress.

by Melinda Kolk

Melinda Kolk ( @melindak ) is the Editor of Creative Educator and the author of Teaching with Clay Animation . She has been helping educators implement project-based learning and creative technologies like clay animation into classroom teaching and learning for the past 15 years.

Project-based Learning Professional Development

Creative Educator can help you bring project-based learning to your school.

What is PBL and why do it?
Make It Matter! Move it from projects to project-based learning
Developing the questions for project-based learning
Write a Great Authentic Task
It's the Process, Not the Product
Assessing Project Work
Formative assessment during project-based learning
Collaboration
PBL and Presentations of Learning

Project-based learning professional development

Bring project-based learning to your school

Five habits of great classroom coaches

Get the most out of collaboration during student project work

The glorious, wonderful, empty page

Make It Matter! Move from projects to project-based learning

More sites to help you find success in your classroom

Share your ideas, imagination, and understanding through writing, art, voice, and video.

Rubric Maker

Create custom rubrics for your classroom.

Pics4Learning

A curated, copyright-friendly image library that is safe and free for education.

Write, record, and illustrate a sentence.

Interactive digital worksheets for grades K-8 to use in Brightspace or Canvas.

Professional Learning

Digital Storytelling

21st Century Classrooms

Project-based Learning

Teaching and Learning

Informational Text

English Language Aquisition

Language Arts

Social Studies

Visual Arts

Our Mission

Reframing How We Assess Student Writing

The work of assessing writing assignments can be shared with students, creating a critical learning opportunity for them.

A teacher giving a student feedback about his writing

Every teaching role has its unique burden. Science teachers invest long hours in preparing laboratory experiments with expensive and sometimes hazardous materials. Math teachers wrestle with innumeracy and negative stereotypes of math , especially at the higher levels. History teachers work hard to avoid turning their subject matter into the rote memorization of isolated facts .

English teachers like myself, and upper division ones especially, are witness to a tidal wave of written work: quick writes, compositions, literary responses, annotated bibliographies, timed and take-home essays, and more. I consider myself an effective and disciplined teacher, but I am regularly submerged under the work produced by my 180+ students.

The problem with the traditional method of handling the paper load is that it is still fundamentally teacher-centered, relying on our time management and efficiency rather than on innovations that broaden the number of stakeholders and focus on qualitative outcomes over more traditional grading. A better way, one that I first considered as I learned to teach students to think about their audience, involves turning students from mere producers of writing into scholars and theorists whose experiences carry authority, merit, and value.

Students should write a lot. The following strategies aim to help English teachers in particular, and teachers of writing more broadly, understand how to reframe the assigning and assessing of writing to improve students’ skills—while improving teachers’ mental health, too.

4 Ways to Increase Student Writers’ Authority

1. Complicate the audience: One of the biggest problems with in-school writing, whether in high school or college, is the one-dimensionality of the compositions. They are generally intended for an audience of one—the person doing the grading—and read like an extended advertisement, parroting the grader’s ideas back at them.

My time at the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute as a journalism teacher showed me how powerful writing for a complex, multifaceted audience can be. Rather than writing to impress, students should aim for communicating their ideas , regardless of topic, to a heterogeneous and educated but uninformed audience that is willing to be convinced—if the writer conveys information with careful, measured argument and prose. This requires that teachers teach and reinforce an understanding of audience as an expansive, open category rather than a closed one.

2. Develop the students’ ability to synthesize: The most important aspect of the AP English Language and Composition exam, and one that is increasingly relevant outside of the classroom, is the synthesis essay . For this task, students read a series of short texts on a topic and then create their own informed position. Instead of a straightforward argumentative essay—though there is that, too, on the exam—students must aim to be inclusive and nuanced, situating their thought among ideas they find interesting and those they actively disagree with. The goal here is not to win the argument but to demonstrate an understanding of the topic and take a stance, anticipating and responding to a reader’s counterarguments and questions.

In the classroom, teachers can easily create opportunities for synthesis writing. For example, teachers can have students draw on their peers’ ideas about a topic as the bank of information they can use in their own responses. The resulting papers will aim to integrate and respond to the many classroom perspectives and teach students that their classmates are sources of wisdom. An essay about America’s place in the world, the purpose of education, or our duties or obligations to the environment, for instance, would produce a wide range of opinions that students could then synthesize, expanding their own understanding and situating themselves among the stances of their peers.

3. Focus on individual growth over grades: Overemphasizing grades can stifle growth and creativity. Students of writing should understand how they are developing relative to their own past performance—in addition to where they stack up against other writers generally. Ideally, this means that teachers would work with students on developing a writing portfolio , a cross-section of work completed throughout the term or class that reflects their strengths and growth as writers.

Using those materials as a historical record, teachers can lead students through the revision process in a deeper, more comprehensive way—not just fixing the small, conventional things but also looking at persistent, high-level structural and organizational issues that, once addressed, can turn adequate writers into exceptional ones.

One of the main differences I have found between the typical and the excellent student writer is an awareness of one’s own prose and style. After taking a close, honest look at their body of work, students become more comfortable speaking to their own writing in a mature and introspective way. At a bare minimum, requiring revisions will ensure that students know how to improve their work, taking a look at it later with clear eyes.

4. Let students practice self and peer assessment: Every year, I tell my students that my objective is to make myself irrelevant—I’ll help during the course of the year, but they eventually need to go it alone. In my class, this has meant incorporating metacognition as a part of my classroom’s daily practice.

Students spend a great deal of time scoring essays —their own, those of their peers, and, when I can get them, sample essays from other teachers or the AP exam. While rubrics are critical to ensuring reflective conversations, it’s not enough to ask students to evaluate the writing against the rubric alone. Rather, I try to have students mimic the kind of conversations that teachers have with colleagues when they’re assessing writing: The goal is not just a grade, but a clear, persuasive explanation that identifies specific passages and choices the author made.

From there, teachers can have high-level conversations about why the student score is right or wrong, and move on to a brief, targeted writing conference on specific ways to tweak the piece. As students gain fluency, these writing conferences can be student-to-student, gradually removing the teacher from the equation (I told you I’d make myself irrelevant!).

The important takeaway here—across all of these strategies—is that teachers are not the best or only source of assessment, and they are not the only audience for writing. It is far better to teach students how to fish; far better for teachers to spread the hard work of assessment around so more writing practice can be incorporated; and far better for student writers to consider the craft from many perspectives, and with an awareness of the complexity of real audiences of readers.

Library Catalogue

Research essay self assessment checklist

This is a list of the basic requirements that an APA (6th edition) formatted research paper should meet prior to submission for grading. Note: Always check with your professor regarding which formatting style is required.

1. Essay title

is interesting and engages the reader
reflects the content of the essay
original (your own title)
appears as a “running head” on each page of essay (see APA style guide )

2. Title page

follows APA guidelines for a title page
contains first and last name of writer
instructor name
name of course

3. Formatting

double spaced
1”/2.5 cm margins
12 point font
standard font (e.g., Times, Helvetica)
stapled or paper clipped
all major words in titles of books and articles are capitalized within the body of the paper
pages are consecutively numbered starting with the title page, in Arabic numerals , in the upper right-hand corner

4. Introduction

general opening sentence linked to topic
roadmap or preview/summary of main points/themes to be developed
thesis gives a direct, argumentative focus
thesis is not predictable and formulaic (i.e., does not have a 3-point thesis)
thesis does one thing: tells the reader the main argument or purpose of essay

5. Body paragraphs

contain topic sentences
show evidence of linking words and transitions
provide evidence and examples to support claims
contain one main topic/theme per paragraph
make connections between ideas (cohesion)
indented at start of each paragraph
contain in-text citations where needed for reference materials
have a concluding sentence or phrases that signal end of paragraph

6. Conclusion paragraph

mirrors the introduction
summarizes /reviews main essay points
provides a new insight or emerging questions that arise from the essay
leaves reader with interesting final thought or suggestions for further consideration

7. Citation/attribution

proper quotation marks are put around any material directly copied word for word from references/outside sources
the author, year, and page number is included in parentheses
properly paraphrased content with a page number (encouraged)
changes to key words (i.e., using synonyms)
changes to sentence structure from original text
summarizes / synthesizes original text without misrepresenting meaning
uses language of attribution to indicate source and to grammatically embed reference info into own writing
quotations over 40 words start on a new line, are indented about ½ an inch, and do not contain quotation marks

8. Language

spell checked
appropriate academic tone and word choices
proofread or edited for grammatical accuracy

9. End references

appear right after conclusion paragraph on a separate page
the word References appears at the top of reference list and is centered on the page
follow APA citation rules
only the first word of titles and subtitles (and words after a colon or dash) and proper nouns are capitalized
listed in alphabetical order
must be used/appear in the body of the essay as in-text citations
proper indenting, italicizing where applicable

10. Academic integrity

the ideas and arguments expressed and written in the research paper are wholly my own and
written for my course assignment
all content, ideas, and words used from outside references or individuals have been properly cited and referenced as per APA guidelines and SFU policies for academic integrity Section 4.0

Contributed by Anne Hales. Used with permission

COMMENTS

Self Assessment Essay Examples
My Self-assessment: Introvert, Sensing, Feeling, and Judging (isfj) Essay grade: Good. 1 page / 660 words. After conducting some self-assessments, I learned that I am an "ISFJ", which stands for Introvert, Sensing, Feeling, and Judging. This means that I am good at working hard, respecting the chain of command, working with routines, and ...
15 Self-Assessment Examples for Students (2024)
Definition of Self-Assessment. Brown and Harris (2013, p. 368) defined self-assessment in a school context as a "descriptive and evaluative act carried out by the student concerning his or her own work and academic abilities". Making a judgment regarding our own abilities is easier said than done. If we want to know the truth, then we need an objective assessment.
Student Self-assessment
Students are using a rubric (e.g., grading rubric for written assignments (docx)) to self-assess a draft essay before turning it in or making revisions.As part of that process, you want them to assess their use of textual evidence to support their claim. Here are example instructions you could provide (adapted from Beard, 2021):
PDF Student Self-Assessment: The Key to Stronger Student Motivation and
Self-monitoring, a skill necessary for effective self-assessment, involves focused attention to some aspect of behavior or thinking (Schunk 2004). Self-monitoring students pay deliberate attention to what they are doing, often in relation to external standards. Thus, self-monitoring concerns awareness of thinking and progress as it occurs, and ...
A Critical Review of Research on Student Self-Assessment
This article is a review of research on student self-assessment conducted largely between 2013 and 2018. The purpose of the review is to provide an updated overview of theory and research. The treatment of theory involves articulating a refined definition and operationalization of self-assessment. The review of 76 empirical studies offers a critical perspective on what has been investigated ...
4 Steps of Student Self-Assessment
1. Arrange your students' work around the room so that each student can walk around and have the space to critique each piece. 2. You'll need a lot of Post-it notes. Each student needs a stack of Post-it notes to match the number of peer works that that they'll be critiquing. 3.
Self Assessment
A self-assessment research paper is directed to a writer themselves. It consists of crucial parts like the introduction, body, and conclusion. It is crucial to describe a few traits of yours in your essay. To simplify your effort, there are some self-assessment essay examples for students. You can read, analyze them and draw your outline of a ...
Helping Students Thrive by Using Self-Assessment
Self-assessment also helps students practice learning independently, which is a key skill for life, and especially for students who are pursuing higher education. ... After students write an outline or first draft of an essay, hold an individual conference with each student. Before you provide your input, have students identify the strengths ...
The importance of student self-assessment
Student self-assessment can be a powerful way to build metacognition and self-efficacy skills. It can also reduce a teacher's workload, especially in ELA. ... As a learner-manager ELA teacher, I would give directions for an essay, set a due date, collect essays, take hours to mark and grade the essays, and then hand back the papers. ...
Self Assessment
Self-assessment is usually assigned as the final act of a writing project. It is often presented in terms of a "cover letter" or "memo" to the instructor that accompanies a completed product. It could also be presented as a mini essay as described above. It may be helpful to provide prompts that will help students reflect.
Self Assessment Essay Examples
Self Evaluation: the Journey to Self-discovery. Self-evaluation is a critical aspect of personal growth and development. It involves introspection, self-awareness, and a sincere assessment of one's strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. This essay delves into the process of self-evaluation, its significance in personal and ...
Full article: Self-assessment is about more than self: the enabling
Student self-assessment. Being able to self-assess is fundamental for self-regulated and lifelong learning (Panadero, Lipnevich, and Broadbent Citation 2019; Yan Citation 2020; Yan, Chiu, and Ko Citation 2020).Although self-assessment could be understood as a skill or a capacity, in this article we conceptualise it as a learning practice from the pedagogical perspective.
Student Reflection and Self-Assessment
Student Reflection & Self-Assessment. 4 ideas for building self-evaluation into the learning process. Project-based learning is a student-centered approach to learning, so it is natural to make student self-evaluation an integral part of the process. Providing time for students to reflect on their work, helps them make connections to previous ...
Sample Student Self-assessment
Sample Student Self-assessment. Final Portfolio Self Assessment. English 1201 This is a reflection on just one semester, so it does not refer to an entire year's worth of work and progress. However it is, otherwise, a good model for you to follow. When I am writing an essay, I am talking to the reader; I want to reach the reader.
The impact of self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and
Writing on-demand, text-based analytical essays is a challenging skill to master. Novice writers, such as the sixth grade US students in this study, may lack background knowledge of how to compose an effective essay, the self-efficacy skills, and the goal setting skills that will help with completing this task in accomplished ways. This sequential mixed-method study explored the impact of ...
Self and Peer Assessment on Student Writing
4. Let students practice self and peer assessment: Every year, I tell my students that my objective is to make myself irrelevant—I'll help during the course of the year, but they eventually need to go it alone. In my class, this has meant incorporating metacognition as a part of my classroom's daily practice. Students spend a great deal ...
Sample Student Self-Assessment
Sample Student Self-Assessment. Candan Nixon. Professor X. English 1201. May 11, 2019. The Decisions that Transform Your Writing. Every sentence is a new decision that will determine the success or failure of an essay. Throughout this class, I have consistently progressed my ability to make better decisions regarding the rhetorical elements of ...
Self Assessment Essay
Personal Self Assessment Essay. Self assessment is a process in which you examine yourself in attempt to discover and learn more about yourself. Your likes, dislikes, behaviors, attitudes and habits can be found during this process. You can use the discoveries to your advantage by accepting or changing strengths and weaknesses.
Student Self Assessment Essay
STUDENT SELF-ASSESSMENT: THINKING ABOUT THE WAY WE "KNOW" Marie Eaton 1. ABSTRACT. Narrative student-self assessment as an evaluation procedure provides a rich source of information for faculty about student learning, and also serves a unique role in encouraging students to become more engaged and empowered in their own learning.
PDF Assessing Student Writing: The Self-Revised Essay
tive self-assessment invites students to become active participants in their own learning. As in timed essay assessment, portfolio readers are normed in order to increase assessment reliability, so that assessment need not be done by as-sessment experts. Finally, portfolio assessment can be used to assess student
Student Self Assessment Essay
Student Self Assessment Essay. 749 Words3 Pages. In recent years, self-assessment has received a lot of attention. Stiggins, Arter, Chappuis, and Chappuis (2007) define self-assessment as the process during which students identify their own strengths and areas for improvement and set goals for future learning.
Research essay self assessment checklist
Research essay self assessment checklist. This is a list of the basic requirements that an APA (6th edition) formatted research paper should meet prior to submission for grading. Note: Always check with your professor regarding which formatting style is required. 1. Essay title. is interesting and engages the reader.
Self-Assessment Essay
My work. Self-Assessment Essay. May 13, 2024/. Jordan Rodriguez 5/10/2024. I believe I achieved most of the course learning outcomes this semester to a high extent. I examined how attitudes towards linguistic standards empower and oppress language users when I wrote for our language project about my own struggles, and learned how every single ...
Self-Assessment Essay
Self-Assessment Essay. Dylan Moina. May 5, 2024. In this course, I achieved the five most important learning outcomes which are linguistic standards, writing, and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations, developing strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing, and practicing key rhetorical terms and ...
Self-Assessment Essay
Self-Assessment Essay. By Demetrios Sinishtaj (he/him/his) May 12, 2024. No Comments on Self-Assessment Essay. As someone who wanted to simply write about things and I suppose whatever topics I can choose, I was definitely glad being in the class. I was able to write about topics and learn about gathering information and a few other things.
Self-Assessment
Self-Assessment. Waneshka Mendez. 05/12/2024. English110. Prof. Lobell. Self-Assessment Essay. I do not really know what to talk about, but this is a common occurrence when it comes to writing assignments. I often find myself staring at a blank page with just a simple heading and my name on it. Waiting for something to come to my head, I do not ...
Self Assessment Essay
No Comments on Self Assessment Essay; Throughout the years back from middle school and until the end of my high school graduation, I had already thought I was improving much better in my writing skills because of my talent for it as I keep on teaching myself. I hold a deep interest in writing short novels to impress myself and someday impress ...
The relationship between mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics
Background This empirical study aims to investigate the association between mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics achievement gaps among students in Grades 4, 8, and 12, utilizing data from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The study also considers student-level (e.g., mathematics self-efficacy, gender, race/ethnicity) and school-level (e.g., school location ...
Self assessment
Self assessment. May 13, 2024. English 110 for me started like any other class. On the first day of class, we got to know each other, everybody introducing themselves and telling a little about themselves. We talked about what we would be doing in class. Went through the syllabus and the grading contract. For me, this was not new.