How Accurate Are Our Students?

September 19, 2024

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Self-Assessment

This study aims to examine the available empirical evidence regarding the accuracy of self-assessment and its effects, as well as to identify potential factors, commonly referred to as moderators, that may influence these effects.

The Importance of Student Self-Assessment

Student self-assessment most generally involves 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. For example, self-assessment could self-grading approaches and peer feedback before self-assessment. 

There were two previous meta-studies on self-assessment. The first study focused on the accuracy of self assessment and found that students and teachers had matching assessments of work an average of 64.1% of the time. The second study focused on the relationship of self-assessment to academic achievement, effects of self-assessment on self-regulation processes, student perceptions of self-assessment, and accuracy of self- assessment. Regarding the effects of age and ability, these tended to be confounded, but younger students tended to present overscoring while older ones were closer to the teachers’ scores. Regarding ability, abler students were more accurate. Regarding task features, activities that were familiar and predictable for the students seem to produce more accurate self-assessment. Regarding methods of self-assessment, the more specific and concrete the standards and criteria, the higher the accuracy. Finally, they also reported on other variables that could influence accuracy but with less certainty such as gender, ethnic culture, personality, or training.

Student Self-Assessment Should be Combined With Teacher Feedback

The authors conducted a meta-analysis using 160 papers. The search was limited to peer reviewed English language articles that had been published after 1989. The authors had three research questions. 

Question 1: What are the main characteristics of Self-assessment accuracy studies?

Answer: Most studies focused on higher education, and are centered around student’s scoring accuracy in their self-assessment

Question 2: What is the average student’s self assessment accuracy?

Answer: There was a medium/high correlation between scores issued by the students on their self-assessment and the scores given by the expert/instructor. There was a slight overestimation of the students in their scoring when compared with the expert/instructor. 

Question 3: Do the moderators influence students’ self-assessment accuracy?

Answer: It was found that when self-assessment is done without feedback, there is a tendency for students to greatly overestimate their score. The use of a self-assessment rubric did not show much of an improvement.

There is a General Overlap Between a Student’s Self-Assessment and Teacher Feedback 

The authors noted that researchers investigating self-assessment should not limit themselves to scoring accuracy alone, but should also investigate content accuracy. 

The authors note a reasonable level of reassurance that there is general overlap between what students self-assess and what their instructor would give them. As most studies were focused on higher education, it was found that the more content knowledge students had, the easier it was for them to self-assess. 

The authors note that the highest leverage practices teachers have control over in relation to increasing the accuracy of student self-assessment is providing feedback.

Notable Quotes: 

1. “We found that when self-assessment was performed in the absence of feedback, a significant overestimation was found”

2: “Having knowledge or mastery about the topic to be self-assessed showed a significantly increased precision though it did not reach perfect precision either”

3: “In future research, it would be interesting to explore whether, while keeping the emphasis in the formative purposes, students would also receive the message that scoring accuracy is important if they anchor their score to the learning goals, something that we have not found in the included studies. “

Personal Takeaway: 

This study reinforced the importance of feedback and developing content knowledge in order for students to assess their knowledge. As the authors mentioned, most of the studies they included were from higher education, not K-12. —Matt Browne

León, S. P., Panadero, E., & García-Martínez, I. (2023). How accurate are our students? A meta-analytic systematic review on self-assessment scoring accuracy. Educational Psychology Review, 35(4), 106.