Self-Assessment: Importance On Learner Independence And Practices

2.3.2.1 Self-assessment

Self-assessment has gained much attention in recent years; emphasizing on learner independence and autonomy and it has significant pedagogic value (M Patri, 2002). Students need to know about their abilities, how much progress they are making and what they can do with the skills they have acquired. Without such knowledge, it wouldn’t be easy for them to learn efficiently. From an educational viewpoint, knowing to what extent students can evaluate their own performance is also important. Students can do it correctly and then then don’t need to depend on their teachers and so the teacher can find out students’ needs. John Upsher (1975) was one of the first who provided a rationale for the use of self-assessment in the

Students make an irregular draft of their assignment. They observe their improvement by comparing their work-in-progress to the supposed expectations. For instance, if students are writing, they can use colored pencils to circle a typical phrase in the rubric the same in their drafts as an evidence of reaching the standards articulated in the key phrase. If students have understood they have not obtained a specific standard in their draft, they give themselves feedback which can be a reminder to make progress in their final drafts. This process can be done for each standard on the rubric, with different colored pencils (Andrade, Du, & Wang,

According to Gardner (1999), some benefits of self-assessment are: Learners’ autonomy; Self-assessors decide about materials for assessment, time of it, and the process in which it should be done. Independent learners are responsible for their learning and this includes taking responsibility for monitoring their progress. Self-assessment provides an opportunity to self-tailor an assessment regime which can parallel a self-tailored study regime.

Learners’ motivation; Self-assessments help learners monitor their level of success in specific learning tasks. A series of self-assessments will contribute to monitoring progress towards specific learning objectives. As a motivational effect we can point to increased confidence. Although self-assessment does not always lead to success but where it does, even on a small scale, learners' motivation will be