The Teaching Professor suggests that they can and we should : Can students accurately assess their work? Most of us would say no with some conviction. But could they accurately evaluate their work under conditions that separated the grade they’d like to receive from the one they think their work deserves? A study in Great Britain found that they could. Even more surprising, the 160 students in this sample were first semester college students. The researcher asked them to estimate their grade on completed work using a 100 percentage point scale and 60 percent of them were within 10 percent of the grade given by the teacher. Equally surprising was the fact that when students were not within 10 percent, under-evaluation occurred more often than over-evaluation. Almost 60 percent under estimated their grade. ...However, other research has shown that students are quite mystified as to the purpose behind teachers’ requests to self assess. They don’t understand why the teacher who has complet...
Observations and ramblings of an economist with a passion for teaching...