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Образование и наука. Том 20, № 6. 2018/The Education and Science Journal. Vol. 20, № 6. 2018
КОНСУЛЬТАЦИИ
УДК 373.1 DOI: 10.17853/1994-5639-2018-6-183-194
THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF STUDENT SELF-ASSESSMENT
F. R. Saribeyli
Institute of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Baku, Azerbaijan.
E-mail: fsaribeyti@mail. ru Abstract. Introduction.. The problems of assessment of student achievements as an indicator of the quality of knowledge and skills acquired by them are constantly in the focus of the pedagogical community and scientists involved in the development of education. Currently, the question of the objective measurement of learning outcomes is especially relevant because the priority task of education is the development of the student's abilities to set independently learning goals, project ways of their implementation, monitor own actions, reflect own successes and failures and correct errors, in other words, the formation of the ability to learn independently. The traditional scoring system of grades is of little use to solve this problem since it is focused primarily on testing the reproductive level of mastering the training material and is aimed solely at external control, rather than improving the learning outcomes. In the new conditions, a new assessment system which includes self-control and self-assessment of students is required.
The aim of the publication is to discuss the existing approaches to the formation of self-evaluation of students and the effective use of this pedagogical tool for monitoring and increasing the motivation to learning in the educational process.
Methodology and research methods. The main research methods are theoretical analysis, synthesis, comparison and generalization of the content of scientific literature of the relevant subject matter.
Results and scientific novelty. A new format for the learning outcomes assessment based on the collection of information on the achievements of the students from various sources and on the regular monitoring of their advancing progress along the individual educational trajectory is considered. Such a prolonged assessment is more informative than the usual marks which are set out in points, so it allows the teacher to promptly regulate the educational process and make timely correct decisions about its correction. In addition, it enables the student to participate in the procedures for assessing his/her own level of knowledge and develops his/her self-assessment skills. According to the initial targets, summative or forming types of self-assessment are identified. Its advantages as a mechanism for managing the educational process are shown: self-assessment contributes to
the improvement of metacognitive abilities and the formation of critical (self-critical) thinking of students; activates their self-awareness; increases interest and motivation to learning; encourages to be independent subjects of the educational process, which is extremely important from the point of view of the strategy of lifelong learning.
Practical significance. The materials of the article provide a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of students' self-assessment as an obligatory element of the new educational paradigm, which has just begun to be introduced into everyday pedagogical practice.
Keywords: self-assessment, teacher, student, training, reflection, grade, achievement, class, information.
For" citation: Saribeyli F. R. Theoretical and practical aspects of student self-assessment. The Education and Science Journal. 2018; 6 (20) 183-194. DOI: 10.17853/1994-5639-2018-6-183-194
ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ И ПРАКТИЧЕСКИЕ АСПЕКТЫ САМООЦЕНКИ ОБУЧАЮЩИХСЯ
Ф. Р. Сарибейли
Институт Образования Азербайджанской Республики, Баку, Азербайджан.
E-mail: fsaribeyli@mail. ru
Аннотация. Введение. Проблемы оценки достижений учащихся как показателя качества усвоенных ими знаний, умений и навыков постоянно находятся в зоне внимания педагогической сообщества и ученых, занимающихся развитием сферы образования. В настоящее время вопрос об объективном измерении результатов обучения особенно актуален в связи с тем, что приоритетной задачей образования становится развитие способностей ученика самостоятельно ставить учебные цели, проектировать пути их реализации, контролировать свои действия, рефлексировать собственные успехи и неудачи и исправлять ошибки - иначе говоря, формирование готовности самостоятельно учиться. Для решения данной задачи малопригодна традиционная балльная система оценок, ориентированная преимущественно на проверку репродуктивного уровня усвоения учебного материала и направленная исключительно на внешний контроль, а не на улучшение результатов учения. В новых условиях необходима новая система оценивания, включающая самоконтроль и самооценку обучающихся.
Цель публикации - обсуждение существующих подходов к формированию самооценки обучающихся и эффективного использования в учебном процессе этого педагогического инструмента контроля и повышения мотивации к обучению.
Методы. Основными методами исследования являются теоретический анализ, синтез, сравнение и обобщение содержания научной литературы соответствующей тематики.
Результаты и научная новизна. Рассмотрен новый формат оценивания результатов обучения, который основан на сборе из различных источников сведений о достижениях учащихся, регулярном мониторинге их поступательного продвижения по индивидуальной образовательной траектории. Такое пролонгированное оценивание более информативно, чем привычные отметки, выставляемые в баллах, поэтому оно позволяет педагогу оперативно регулировать учебный процесс и принимать своевременные верные решения о его коррекции. Кроме того, оно дает возможность ученику участвовать в процедурах оценки собственного уровня знаний и развивает у него навыки самооценки. Согласно исходным целевым установкам выделены суммирующий или формирующий виды самооценки. Показаны ее преимущества как механизма управления образовательным процессом: самооценка содействует совершенствованию метакогнитивных способностей и становлению критического (самокритичного) мышления учащихся; активизирует их самосознание; повышает интерес и мотивацию к обучению; поощряет быть независимыми субъектами своего образования, что крайне важно с точки зрения стратегии обучения на протяжении всей жизни.
Практическая значимость. Материалы статьи дают комплексное представление о феномене самооценки учащихся как обязательном элементе новой образовательной парадигмы, который пока только начал внедряться в повседневную педагогическую практику.
Ключевые слова.: самооценка, учитель, ученик, обучение, размышление, оценка, достижение, класс, информация.
Для цитирования: Saribeyli F. R. Theoretical and practical aspects of self-assessment обучающихся // The Education and Science Journal. 2018. Vol. 20. № 6. Р. 183-194. DOI: 10.17853/1994-5639-2018-6-183-194
Introduction
A more general definition of assessment is gathering information on students, classroom performance and learning results based on various sources. Of course, assessment is not restricted to simply collecting information. It also means making judgments about the students' achievements based on the gathered information, monitoring of students' progress, reflecting on students' performance and their engagement with the learning process.
Considering these factors, self-assessment can be defined as the involvement of a student in some or all aspects of the above-mentioned assessment process. Similar to other assessments, self-assessment can possibly have different aims. Self-assessment can be summative or formative. When a part of a summa-
tive assessment, students grade their own work or own performance on an answer sheet. In this case, students are not expected to use this kind of assessment to improve their learning. However, as a part of formative assessment, self-assessment serves as a supporting factor for students learning [1].
In case of correct implementation, student self-assessment can boost intrinsic motivation, students' internal control with regard to learning, encourage students to define more precise goal orientation and engage in more meaningful learning. Whether it is used within classroom assessments or large-scale assessments, self-assessment undoubtedly has a direct and positive impact on students' performance and learning. By empowering students to lead their own learning, self-assessment helps students deeply acquire the criteria for judging achievements [2].
Self-assessment means more than just doing a multiple-choice test or grading. Self-assessment is a more complex process by which students 1) monitor, reflect and assess the quality of their thinking and behaviour in a learning process, and 2) identify methods and strategies, which develop their knowledge and skills. In other words, a real and effective self-assessment is a process through which students discover gaps and inconsistency between their current and expected performance. With these properties, self-assessment resembles traditional education paradigms that support students in self-assessment. Besides, self-assessment identifies more learning objectives and instructional strategies, which students use to gain more achievements [1, 3].
Literature Review
Self-assessment can be conceptualized as a combination of three components in a cyclical process: self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and identification and implementation of instructional correctives as needed [1, p. 41] (Figure).
Self-monitoring is an important component since it encourages students to focus their attention on a certain aspect of thinking or action. With self-monitoring, students concentrate on they are engaged in, and in such a case, students are well aware of progress in learning [4].
The second component, self-judgment means identifying progress towards the objective. Self-judgment occurs in combination with defined standards and therefore provides students with a clear idea about their current level of knowledge and what they need to learn more. Defining certain criteria and principles in evaluation assure more accurate and meaningful self-assessment for students [5].
The third component, learning targets and instructional correctives motivate students to set certain learning goals to improve a relatively correct answer,
eliminate misunderstandings and gain further learning. Since at this stage students need certain skills to determine objectives and relevant instructions, they need to be conscious of options for further aims and instructions [1, 6].
Student self-assessment cycle
Within self-assessment, students need to reflect on their own learning activities and think over how effectively they performed in class activities. Self-assessment does not necessarily require students to grade themselves. The core objective of self-assessment is to provide students opportunities to generate ideas on good and bad sides of their performance. Therefore, students should be involved in the forming assessment criteria.
Reflection is central to self-assessment in terms of the fact that reflective skills develop students' abilities think over their learning results and find out their weaknesses and strengths. This ability influences students' future performance in both education and career life. By recognizing their weak points, students willingly come to a conclusion that they need further development, and this, in its turn, increases students' motivation for learning. Self-assessment can be considered as an effective teaching and learning tool, especially in cases when students are equipped with an opportunity to improve crucial lifelong learning skills [7].
There are many forms and methods of self-assessment one of which is reflective tasks in which students make notes of their performance and lear-
ning results. Another method is to ask students to assess their results through traditional methods like grading or making verbal remarks on their own results. Another method is to encourage students to complete questionnaires on their performance.
In order to apply an effective self-assessment, students need to have a good understanding of the self-assessment criteria and principles with which they measure their performance and results in terms of quality and quantity. With a profound understanding of criteria and principles of self-assessment, students are able to gauge their current level of achievements and possible future achievements [8]. Moreover, by assessing themselves students gain greater autonomy and independent learning skills. To succeed in such an efficient self-assessment, the criteria and principles should be easy to understand and transparent so that students are able to use them independently. In possible cases, students should be involved in the formation of these criteria and principles in order to enlarge own view on academic standards and requirements [9].
Modern teaching paradigms testify to the importance of self-assessment in education. The importance attached to self-assessment is partly because of a paradigm shift in education. Modern teaching approaches stress the significance of active participation of students in their own learning, responsibility, interactive model of learning as well as metacognitive skills. Assessment process, in which a teacher is a dominant power, restricts options and affects students' potential for development in many aspects [9].
Teachers who are in favour of progressive teaching need to consider collaboration with students and co-construction of knowledge as a central part of the teaching process, and also need to involve students in teaching process so that they can share more in the assessment process. Many pedagogues try to create classroom-learning opportunities, which meet criteria of constructivist learning. However, these criteria are very often ignored while preparing and applying assessment tasks. So many pedagogues still retain all the power of the assessment process. In such a case, there is an urgent need to align principles of assessment with the principles of constructivist learning. It should be kept in mind that students' active engagement in design, principles, criteria of assessment prove to be effective and productive in terms of teacher's performance as well [10].
Boud suggests that like all assessment, self-assessment has two elements: making a decision on standards of expected learning results and then making a judgment on the quality of learning with regard to these standards. An original and quality self-assessment should meet these two requirements [11].
Moreover, Andrade and Du state that self-assessment is a part of a formative assessment with which students share their views on their own work and learning, find out positive and negative points in their performance and come to a conclusion that they need to take further measures to reach expected level [12].
Effective application of self-assessment to a learning process
Concerning the question of why to apply self-assessment, there is a meaningful rationale behind it. Contemporary paradigms of education require that students should have an opportunity to express their opinion on their learning that is of considerable importance in terms of impartial assessment. Regardless of the level of expertise, any teacher can possibly be biased or miss some point while evaluating students. To assure as much objectivity as possible, it is crucial to involve students in an evaluation process. Furthermore, by participating in an evaluation process, students become well aware of the real state of their learning, and this can play an essential factor to motivate students in more active and productive learning. In many cases, students are not eager to learn more, unless they recognize the need themselves. Usually students can be demotivated by poor grades given by a teacher because students cannot see the rationale behind the grade. In such a case, they need to witness their real performance, which can occur through self-assessment [13].
Besides, self-assessment can function as a tool to promote a sense of responsibility and stimulate students to work independently and take ownership of learning process. One of the blessings of self-assessment is the fact that it distributes the responsibility of assessment between students and a teacher. In fact, assessment should not be something imposed by a teacher but rather something which requires a partnership between a teacher and a learner. Self-assessment underlines a formative aspect of evaluation and reveals all the facts in terms of students' current level of knowledge and skills, their background and experience as well as the zone of proximal development [14].
Self-assessment is also favourable from not only students' aspects but also teachers' aspect. Thus, self-assessment takes the focus off teacher performance and distributes it between teacher performance and student performance [13].
One of the revolutionist contributions of self-assessment is that it has changed education culture in which students are evaluated to simply satisfy the teacher. With self-assessment, the focus of assessments shifts from teacher satisfaction to quality of learning. In addition, self-assessment prepares
students not only to solve the problem automatically but also be fully aware of steps and core of solution process [11].
To prove effective and productive self-assessment need to be implemented through carefully established strategies. Teachers should hold detailed discussions on all aspects of self-assessment in order to help students explore criteria and principles of self-assessment. Students need to have practice opportunities through examples and models before real self-assessment occurs.
Boud also argues that there are several key factors for approval and acceptance by students. Firstly, methods and strategies of implementation of self-assessment should be carefully considered by a teacher. The way of introduction is in direct relation with recognition of self-assessment. To be appreciated by students, students need to be provided with a logic explaining the purpose and benefit of self-assessment. Moreover, students should be aware of procedure of self-assessment, thus, what they need to know and do.
Another critical factor is a suitable environment in which students behave honestly without hesitation and concern that they might reveal information that can be used against them. Besides, students should be involved in the formation of criteria and principles of self-assessment which help them grasp the functional importance of self-assessment. To make self-assessment particularly effective, it needs to be designed for a certain discipline. It can also be applied together with teacher assessment and peer assessment. One of the main advantages of self-assessment is that it can be incorporated in almost all learning activities [11].
A student should not implement self-assessment spontaneously. Otherwise, it can be seriously misleading. Students need support and considerable practice to develop skills for more accurate and objective self-assessment. For some points of view, self-assessment proves to be more efficient in cases when it does not involve grading.
By considering all aspects of self-assessment, Boud suggests the good and poor practice of self-assessment [11]. (Table)
Good and poor practices in self-assessment
Good Practice in Self-assessment Poor Practice in Self-assessment
The motive for its introduction is related to enhancing learning It is related to meeting institutional or other external requirements
It is introduced with a clear rationale and there is an opportunity to discuss it with students It is treated as a given part of course requirements
Student perceptions of the process are considered prior to the idea being introduced It is assumed that processes which appear to work elsewhere can be introduced without modification
Образование и наука. Том 20, № 6. 2018/The Education and Science Journal. Vol. 20, № 6. 2018 190
Good Practice in Self-assessment Poor Practice in Self-assessment
Students are involved in establishing criteria Students are using criteria determined solely by others
Students have a direct role in influencing the process The process is imposed on them
Guidelines are produced for each stage of the process Assessments are made impressionis-tically
Students learn about a particular subject through self-assessment, which engages them with it Self-assessment is only used for apparently 'generic' learning processes such as communication skills
Students are involved in expressing understanding and judgment in qualitative ways Assessments are made on rating scales where each point is not explicitly defined
Specific judgments with justifications are involved Global judgments within recourse to justificatory data are acceptable
Learners are able to use information from the context and from other parties to inform their judgments The activities do not draw on the kinds of data which are available in authentic settings
It makes an identifiable contribution to formal decision-making No use is formally made of the outcomes
It is one of a number of complementary strategies to promote self-directed and interdependent learning It is tacked on to an existing subject in isolation from other strategies
Its practices permeate the total course It is marginalized as part of subjects which have low status
Staff are willing to share control of assessment and do so Staff retain control of all aspects (sometimes despite appearances otherwise)
Qualitative peer feedback is used as part of the process It is subordinated to quantitative peer assessment
It is part of a profiling process in which student have an active role Records about students are produced with no input from them
Activities are introduced in step with the students' capabilities in learning-how-to-learn It is a one-off event without preparation
The implications of research on gender differences and differences of presentational style are considered The strategy chosen is assumed to work equally for all
The process is likely to lead to the development of self-assessment skills The exercise chosen relates only to the specific needs of the topic being assessed
Evaluation data are collected to assist in the improvement and for determining its contribution to student learning Evaluation is not considered or is not used
Conclusion
Taking the above-mentioned into consideration, it can be concluded that self-assessment is an effective learning tool and pedagogical approach in terms of several factors, which can be summarized as followings:
Students benefit from self-assessment to improve their meta-cognitive skills; That is why all the students need to have necessary skills for appropriate self-evaluation;
• By involving students in reflective practice, self-assessment increases students' self-awareness and encourages students to be critical and objective towards their own performance;
• Self-assessment also helps students to take control of, and be an active participant of learning and assessment process, and consequently become an independent learner, which is vital in terms of lifelong learning;
• Self-assessment is also beneficial from teachers' perspective since it reduces teachers' workload and gives them a chance to share the responsibility of assessment with students.
References
1. James H. McMillan and Jessica Hearn. Student Self-Assessment: The Key to Stronger Student Motivation and Higher Achievement. Educational Horizons. 2008; V. 87; 1: 40-49.
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Список использованных источников
1. James H. McMillan and Jessica Hearn. Student Self-Assessment: The Key to Stronger Student Motivation and Higher Achievement. Educational Horizons. 2008. V. 87, 1. Р. 40-49.
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Информация об авторе:
Сарибейли Фидан Рамиз - докторант Институт образования Азербайджанской Республики, Баку, Азербайджан. E-mail: [email protected]
Статья поступила в редакцию 24.01.2018; принята в печать 16.05.2018.
Автор прочитал и одобрил окончательный вариант рукописи.
Information about the author:
Saribeyli Fidan Ramiz - PhD student of Institute of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Baku, Azerbaijan. E-mail: [email protected]
Received 24.01.2018; accepted for publication 16.05.2018.
The author has read and approved the final manuscript.
