No / Student self-assessment is widely reported to offer numerous advantages to the learner. It is a popular practice for empowering students and the advantages are claimed to incorporate increased dialogue between students and teachers and the development of skills that encompass critical awareness and reflectivity. It is, potentially, a process that may enable health care practitioners to be lifelong learners, equipped with the skills for autonomy in learning and professional practice. As such it might be viewed as an essential element of the curriculum. This paper reports on a study designed to evaluate the implementation of self-assessment among student health care practitioners. The pilot study examined the impact of self-assessment on learning and how the process was perceived by students and staff. Findings indicated that a varied approach had been taken to its implementation, which had significant repercussions in the way in which it was perceived by students. Similarly, there was a varied approach taken by students to the process of self-assessment and this had significant repercussions for its overall value as a learning tool. The outcomes of this study provide a sound rational for maintaining and expanding the practice of student self-assessment and important lessons for the process of doing so.

This study involved administering two rating forms (student self-rating on commitment and student rating of teacher rapport) to approximately 1,400 secondary students taught by 12 different teachers at two different high school Latter-day Saint (LDS) released time seminaries along the Wasatch Front in Utah. Seminaries and Institutes of Religion (S&I) function within the Church Educational System (CES) of the LDS Church, providing religious education for secondary students between the ages of 14-18. The purpose of this study was to explore relationships between student, teacher, and course characteristics on student ratings of teacher rapport and to explore a possible relationship between student self-assessments on their own commitment to learning with student ratings on their rapport with their teacher. Evidence suggests that teacher characteristics such as the teacher's age and experience have little to no impact on student ratings of teacher rapport. Female students tended to rate their teacher more favorably on rapport than male students, although practical significance was minimal. Younger students reported greater interest in seminary and higher-grade expectancy. They also tended to rate themselves higher on commitment. A statistically significant difference was found for teacher rapport scores between two groups based on the order of test administration. Group 1--self-first (student self-rating before student rating of teacher rapport) reported higher levels of rapport than group 2--comparison (student rating of teacher rapport prior to student self-rating). Students tended to rate their teacher more favorably after completing a self-rating on commitment. Practical significance between study groups was minimal because findings were small. Further research is suggested based on these findings to seek more understanding regarding the relationship between student self-evaluations and student ratings of their teacher.

This study investigated how formative assessment implemented in a fifth grade mathematics classroom with a student response system and a student self-evaluative tool affected student self-assessment. Data were collected through individual student and focus group interviews, self-assessment sheets, and teacher reflections. Formative assessment is a low stakes classroom assessment that is an assessment for learning. This study used a student response system to convey feedback from the formative assessment to both students and teacher during instruction. The student self-assessment sheet was implemented to provide a more dynamic level of feedback for students than what could be provided through the student response system alone

Teacher feedback is a useful tool that can actively engage students in learning and help them improve content knowledge. However, students are generally not motivated to use the teacher feedback. The present study investigated whether self-assessment devices can promote students’ usage of teacher feedback among 5th through 8th graders. Self-assessment is a process during which students monitor and judge their learning process often with tools that provide perspective. The present study hypothesized that a self-assessment intervention utilizing rubrics and guiding questions would help students to successfully revise their work as the teacher feedback intends, accurately predict their performance, become receptive to the teacher’s criticism, and increase their content knowledge. While rubrics contain a list of criteria that the teacher expects students to achieve for each problem, guiding questions ask students to identify areas where they perform well and other areas where they need improvement. The present study took the form of an experiment, with participants divided into two Groups: Experimental (N=89) and Control (N=84). The Experimental Group students used the intervention, whereas the Control Group students did not use the intervention. Every participant worked on solving problems, revising their work, answering questions about the experience, and expressing their preference for the type of teacher feedback in mathematics. The study hypothesized that the self-assessment devices would help students to successfully revise their work as the teacher feedback intends, more accurately predict their performance, become receptive to the teacher’s criticism, and increase their content knowledge. The results showed that the self-assessment intervention helped the students successfully revise their work; furthermore, specific teacher feedback was more effective than general teacher feedback in terms of assisting them to revise. Students who used the intervention demonstrated higher levels of receptivity to negative feedback. On the other hand, the self-assessment intervention showed no significant effect on students’ ability to accurately predict their own performance and it did not produce better mathematics problem solvers. The results suggest that teachers need to provide feedback that precisely locates errors in students’ work and offer specific direction for improvement. Teachers also need to emphasize the purpose of the self-assessment and feedback usage, so that students become more aware of its importance. Furthermore, improving the student-teacher relationship and implementing other forms of self-assessment may enhance the effect of self-assessment on the successful use of feedback by students.

Graduation date: 2006 / Curricular models and teaching techniques that support college students as the primary authors of their writing-across-the-curriculum experiences remain largely unexplored. This thesis addresses that research gap by investigating the use of a start-of-term writing self-assessment and goal-setting questionnaire (STQ) for upper-division undergraduates taking writing-intensive (WI) college courses in their majors. The tool was piloted in 23 WI sections at Oregon State University during winter term 2004. Feedback obtained through an end-of-term writing self-evaluation showed that students who completed the start-of-term questionnaire tended to take the effort seriously, fill out the questionnaire completely, and use the tool for its intended purposes of reflective self-assessment and goal-setting. Students saw the tool as something that could help them with their writing, and study results suggest that its benefits may have been reinforced by students’ end-of-course review of their STQ responses. Feedback from participating instructors indicated that the tool helped with their teaching as well as their students’ learning, and most instructors planned to continue using the STQ beyond the pilot study. Study results also suggest that the questionnaire can serve as a program-level research and assessment tool, providing WI program administrators and policy-makers with new insights on students’ writing needs and goals. Campus-wide use of the STQ may lead to WI program enhancements, generate new ideas for WI instructor training, and support department, college, and institutional writing-curriculum development efforts.