Self assessment

Description

Self assessment benefits both teachers and students. For teachers, self assessment lets teachers have one more tools to observe the learning progress of each student. For students, self assessment allows them to be aware of the assessment criteria and provides them with feedback about how to improve correspondingly.

Implementation

Isaccs (2006) suggested the following ways to implement self-assessment, which teachers should pay attention to.

1. Students should be told that they should assess their performance from the point of view of processes such as participation, contribution, effort, etc.;
2. There should be clear criteria and standards for assessment that are well understood by students.
3. Students should be given some practice and training in the use of the criteria and standards.
4. Students should be told to judge their performance on the assessment tasks only, rather than on other practices not related to the tasks.

Race (2001) suggested 5 typical questions that teacher might ask their students to review by themselves.

1. What do you consider will be a fair score or grade?
2. What did you do best in this assignment?
3. What did you find the hardest part of this assignment?
4. What was the most important thing you learnt about the subject through doing this assignment?
5. How has doing this assignment changed your views?

 

Followed by, Race (2001) said teachers could do the following to enhance the learning experience of students.

1. Teachers should provide constructive feedback to students.
2. Teachers should provide follow-up action for students if necessary; for example, teachers may invite students who have shown problems with self assessment to meet and discuss their difficulties.

 

Application and variation

Angelo and Cross (1993) suggested that self-assessment can vary in terms of questions, means and time of administration. Self-assessment can be done with structured, open-ended questions, or a combination of both questions so as to encourage detailed responses. Depending on accessibility and convenience, self-assessment can be done in hard copies of questionnaire or online surveys. The period of administration should be flexible and yet timely in order to facilitate autonomy among students and to solicit regular feedback, respectively.

Angelo, T. A., & Cross, P. K. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Extended readings

More information about peer-teaching can be found on the papers and/or websites below:

Isaacs, G. (2002). Teaching and learning in higher education series: Assessing group task. Teaching and Educational Development Institute from the University of Queensland. Teachers can click on the link below for more information: http://www.tedi.uq.edu.au/downloads/T&L_Assess_group_tasks.pdf

Race, P. (2001). The lecturer’s toolkit (2nd ed.). London: Kogan Page.

Roberts, T. S. (2006). Self, peer, and group assessment in e-learning. Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing. Teachers can click on the link below for more information:
http://www.igi-global.com/Gateway/ContentOwned/Chapters.aspx?TitleId=887