Self-assessment and what happens over time: Student and staff perspectives, expectations and outcomes

Multiple benefits have been attributed to self-assessment and its ability to help develop evaluative judgement among learners. However, student and staff perceptions and what to expect throughout the self-assessment process deserves further scrutiny, particularly at the postgraduate level. To understand how students engage with self-assessment as a new skill, this study examined the experiential observations among postgraduate students and the teaching staff who implemented a self-assessment intervention designed to improve assessment and feedback procedures. Students were invited to self-assess their own written assignments prior to submission. Markers subsequently graded the work, and to provide a useful comparison, incorporated comments regarding the students’ own self-assessment within the feedback. Students from two postgraduate units subsequently completed an online survey (n = 42) describing their impressions and insights regarding the self-assessment process. To expand upon survey findings, six (n = 6) were randomly selected to participate in in-depths interviews. Teaching staff were invited to participate in separate interviews (n = 5). Self-assessment triggered critical thinking and reflection among students and staff alike in different and specific ways. Inductive thematic analysis identified key domains relevant to both cohorts with multiple sub-themes. These related to (a) the ways self-assessment challenged habitual approaches to assessment tasks, (b) the capacity for providing and receiving increasingly meaningful feedback and (c) the need for initial teaching support and resources for ongoing guidance. Educators considering embedding self-assessment will find insights arising from the results useful for unit planning and future assessment design.