Student Self-Assessment

Self-assessments encourage students to reflect on their skills, knowledge, learning goals, and progress in a course. These practices can range from quick, low-stakes check-ins on lecture content to in-depth evaluations of their performance on major projects. Self-assessment is particularly valuable in courses that use , as it emphasizes continuous growth over static outcomes. At its core, self-assessment aims to “generate feedback that promotes learning and improvements in performance” (Andrade, 2019).

By practicing self-assessment, instructors help students develop transferable lifelong skills that extend beyond the classroom.

Key Skills Developed Through Self-Assessment

1. Metacognition: Thinking 鶹Ƶ Thinking

Metacognitive skills empower students to monitor, plan, and control their mental processes. This helps them evaluate how well they’ve learned material, and make adjustments to their study strategies (McGuire & McGuire, 2015).

  • Example: After completing an assignment, students might reflect on whether they understood the key concepts or if they need to revisit certain topics.
  • Why it Matters: Metacognition enables learners to take ownership of their education by understanding what works for them and what doesn’t.
2. Critical Thinking: Evaluating Evidence and Arguments

Critical thinking involves carefully analyzing and reasoning through the strength of evidence and arguments.

  • Example: In a self-assessment, students might examine the validity of their reasoning in a written essay or a project proposal.
  • Why it Matters: This skill helps students engage deeply with material fostering analytical abilities they can apply in academic, personal, and professional contexts.
3. Reflective Thinking: Questioning Assumptions

Reflective thinking encourages students to question their own assumptions, examine the basis of their beliefs, and consider their growth.

  • Example: Students could write about how their understanding of a concept evolved during the semester or how their positionality influences their perspective.
  • Why it Matters: Reflective thinking promotes personal growth, self-awareness, and a deeper connection to the learning process.
4. Self-Regulated Learning: Intentional Goal-Setting

Self-regulated learners set goals, monitor their progress, and reflect on what study strategies are working (or not).

  • Example: Students might create a study schedule, assess whether they’re meeting their milestones, and adjust their strategies as needed.
  • Why it Matters: Self-regulated learning equips students with the tools to tackle challenges independently, enhancing their adaptability and persistence.

Why Self-Assessment Matters

Fostering self-assessment skills not only helps students succeed in your course but also prepares them to approach future challenges with confidence and resilience. By reflecting on their learning, students become more intentional, engaged, and self-aware learners.

  • For Students: Self-assessment builds autonomy and encourages a sense of ownership over their learning journey. It helps them recognize their strengths, identify areas for improvement, and develop strategies to achieve their goals.
  • For Educators: Self-assessment offers valuable insights into how students perceive their learning, enabling instructors to adjust teaching methods and provide targeted support.

Empowering Students Through Self-Assessment

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 (; ).
  • 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; , 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. 

Example prompts include (Race, 2001):
  • 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., ). Reflective writing is a skill that takes practice and is most effective when done regularly throughout the course ().

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.

An example:

Students are using a rubric (e.g., ) 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 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). 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 (, ) or even after listening to a lecture (). 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 for several disciplines.

References:

  Andrade, H. L. (2019). . Frontiers in Education, 4, Article 87. 

  Beard, E. (2021, April 27). . Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA).

  Brown, P. C., Roediger III, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

  McGuire, S. Y., & McGuire, S. (2015). New York, NY: Routledge. 

  McMillan, J. H., & Hearn, J. (2008). . Educational Horizons, 87(1), 40–49.

  Race, P. (2001). . LTSN Generic Centre, Assessment Series No. 9. 

  RCampus. (2023, June 7). . 

  Teaching (n.d.). . University of New South Wales Sydney.

Further Reading & Resources: 

  Bjork, R. (n.d.). . UCLA Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab.

  Center for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Classroom Assessment Techniques. 鶹Ƶ.

  Center for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Formative Assessments. 鶹Ƶ.

  Center for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Student Peer Assessment. 鶹Ƶ.

  Center for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Summative Assessments. 鶹Ƶ

  Center for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Summative Assessments: Types. 鶹Ƶ