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THE ROLE OF SELF‐ASSESSMENT IN STUDENT GRADINGDavid Boud aa University of New South WalesPublished online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: David Boud (1989) THE ROLE OF SELF‐ASSESSMENT IN STUDENT GRADING, Assessment & Evaluation inHigher Education, 14:1, 20-30, DOI: 10.1080/0260293890140103

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Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education Volume 14 No. 1 Spring 1989Pp. 2 0 - 3 0

THE ROLE OF SELF-ASSESSMENT IN STUDENT GRADING

David Boud, University of New South Wales

ABSTRACT

While the educational benefits of student self-assessment are being increasingly recognised and self-assessment procedures introduced into post-secondary courses of many different kinds, the use ofself-assessment for grading purposes is a more controversial matter. Is there a role for student self-assessment in formal assessment proceedings? If there is to be a role, what should it be? This paperfocuses on these questions and examines why a marking role for self-assessment should be consideredand what evidence is available on the reliability of student-generated marks. The implications ofthese findings are considered and strategies are proposed to improve student markers reliability andto incorporate self-assessment indirectly into the formal assessment process.

INTRODUCTION

Self-assessment by students is becoming increasingly common in tertiary courses.Development of skills of self-assessment is a goal of higher education and self-assessmentdevices are also used to aid learning. The educational merits of using self-assessmentas part of the learning process and of encouraging students to engage in self-monitoringactivities have been established.(1) Much more contentious is the use of self-assessmentas part of formal assessment procedures, that is, as an activity which includes student-derived quantitative assessments as an element of officially recorded assessments.

If self-generated student marks are to be used for this purpose, it is necessary interalia to demonstrate that students can produce marks which are acceptable to teachers— this has usually meant that there is a very high probability that student marks arethe same as staff marks for a given assignment. It is also necessary to demonstrate that,if students can produce marks which are acceptably similar when they are not formallyrecorded, the context of formal assessment proceedings does not distort their ratingsso that students produce unrealistic assessments of their performance under theseconditions. If these points cannot be demonstrated, then student self-assessmentshould either be restricted to a purely learning role and as a skill to be developed, or itshould be used in a way which recognises the potential for bias and distortion, andcontrols for this through some form of moderating device or other strategy which doesnot feed raw scores from students directly into formal records.

This paper commences with a discussion of the role of self-assessment in highereducation and consideration of why students should be involved in assessment forgrading purposes. It goes on to draw on two sources. Firstly, a critical analysis of the

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literature on the comparison of teacher marks with student self-ratings. Secondly,the experience of the author in using self-assessment in grading situations wherestudent marks are not accepted uncritically or used directly. General issues of reli-ability of marking are also noted in passing. The poor quality of quantitative researchon self-assessment is acknowledged and questions are raised about the kinds ofstrategies which teachers can adopt to permit students a role in the formal assessmentprocess. It ends with a brief discussion of the kinds of research which are needed toilluminate the issues in this area.

THE ROLE OF SELF-ASSESSMENT

There is a literature on student self-assessment stretching back for over fifty years,but it has only been in the past twenty years or so that the topic has begun to beseriously studied and self-assessment used systematically for both learning and gradingpurposes. It is now well-accepted that the ability to assess one's own work is animportant element in most forms of learning and that it is an ability which must becultivated if learners are to engage effectively in lifelong learning. In the sphere ofprofessional education the need to monitor one's own performance is one of thedefining characteristics of professional work.

There have been two main strands of development in self-assessment which haveoccurred somewhat independently of each other. In the first strand have been studiesof the reliability of student self-grading taking teacher marks as the independentvariable. Comparisons have been made between the scores produced by students andteachers. The second strand has focussed little on these quantitative aspects and hasbeen principally concerned with developing ways in which students can become morecritical and perceptive about their regular learning, either with respect to particularsubject matter or more generally in their study skills. The goal has been one ofimproving learning. Parallel developments in continuing professional education haveplaced particular emphasis on self-appraisal for professional practice and the role ofpeer review.

MARKS AND SELF-ASSESSMENT

Why should we be concerned about a marking function for self-assessment? If self-assessment is a worthwhile activity in its own right, why consider applying it formarking purposes? The almost universal move towards a greater component of "con-tinuous" assessment in higher education courses has encouraged students to seek allwork to be marked and counted towards their final grading. Assignments set byteachers which are not marked appear to be treated less seriously than they once were:students are less willing to engage in work which does not have an extrinsic reward.In these circumstances, it has been reported that some students are unwilling to takepart in self-assessment exercises if they are not weighted for formal assessmentpurposes even when, in principle, they value a self-assessment exercise.(2,3)

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Also, if there is a high correlation between marks generated by students and thosegenerated by staff, why bother with involving students if their contribution makes nodifference to the final grades? There are at least two arguments for students to beinvolved in generating marks over and above any qualitative form of self-assessment.The first is what might be called the reality argument. This recognises that self-assessment never exists in a vacuum, it always occurs in a context. Sometimes thesetting is quite benign and the individual's standards are quite sufficient; on otheroccasions, the context constrains and may distort the individual's sense of what is anappropriate self-assessment. Self-marking provides practice in the interpretation of theoften arbitrary requirements which most public work needs to satisfy. Students needto be able to assess themselves in situations in which they have only partial knowledgeof the criteria to be used by others and when they may not fully accept the criteriawhich others will apply to them.

The second argument is one based upon expediency. If students can take a greaterrole in assessment, there is potential for saving of staff time on the often tedious taskof marking. Staff time is valuable and that devoted to marking which does not resultin feedback to students, such as for final projects or examinations, is time which is notdevoted to facilitating learning. If students mark their own work, either with respectto specified standards (for example, model answers) or their self-established criteria,they not only release staff for more educationally worthwhile activities, but they areencouraged to reflect on their own work and the standards with which it is appropriatefor them to be concerned.

However, if students are not able to mark themselves reliably with respect toteachers, then these arguments may not be enough for student marking to be usedformally. There is some evidence, discussed below, that student self marks are inmany cases not sufficiently consistent with teacher marks for them to be used straight-forwardly. This leads some teachers to drop all notions of self-assessment despite othereducational benefits, and at the other extreme, others believe the benefits of self-assessment are so great that they should trust their students to act appropriately evenwhen there is a risk that they might not award themselves the same marks as would begiven by a staff member.(4)

THE QUANTITATIVE EVIDENCE

Empirical research studies can throw light upon two aspects of this concern aboutinconsistency. Firstly, is there any systematic bias among students as a whole whichleads them to give themselves higher or lower marks than those that are awarded bystaff? Secondly, is there a tendency for individual students to over- or under-ratethemselves? If there is, is it a conscious act or not? Evidence from the literature on thefirst is discussed below, but the second question is difficult to disentangle from thegeneral question of marker reliability. There already exists well-documented variationsbetween staff markers and with the same marker over time.(5) One might expect atleast a similar variation among students, perhaps more so as they are relatively in-experienced in these matters.

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WHAT DO THE STUDIES SHOW?

The evidence is discussed in detail in Boud.(6) It can be summarised as follows:

(a) The technical quality of the empirical studies which have been reported is nothigh and conclusions drawn from them need to be treated cautiously. Results varyfrom situation to situation as one might expect — there is no reason to believe thatthere is some universal law acting here. However, some general conclusions can bedrawn.

(b) The best evidence which can be deduced from the literature suggests that, so longas studies which involve students grading themselves on effort rather than achievementare excluded from consideration, most students generate marks which are reasonablyconsistent with marks given by staff. However, weaker students do have a tendency toover-rate themselves, sometimes quite considerably, and stronger students have theopposite tendency, although of a lesser magnitude. The influence of formal assessmentappears to increase somewhat the tendency for students to over-rate themselves.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS

If there are problems with consistency when using student-generated marks, does thissuggest that the use of student self-assessment for marking purposes should beabandoned? Not necessarily. Studies which have identified the unreliability of teachermarks have not led to calls for teacher grading to be abandoned, rather they lead toconsiderations of how the marking process can be made more reliable. The problemmay not be the inadequacy of students as markers per se, but the difficulty of themgiving a sufficiently unbiassed opionion about their own work. For example, Orpen(7)

in studies of two courses in which papers were marked by five students and fivelecturers found that marks given by student's peers correlated highly with those givenby the lecturers.

Two approaches to the improvement of performance of student markers suggestthemselves: those associated with improving marker relaibility generally and thosewhich involve ways of not using student-generated marks directly in formal assess-ments.

1. Improving marker reliability

Most of the strategies for improving marker reliability can be applied to studentmarkers as well as staff markers. So, for example, improvements may be made by:

(a) establishing explicit criteria for sastisfactory and unsatisfactory performance.

(b) using scales in which the categories are unambiguously defined;

(c) not using scales which are more sensitive than the fineness of discriminationallows;

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(d) training markers through practising the application of accepted criteria to typicalexamples of work to be marked and the resolution of differences through dis-cussion between markers to reach consensus on the interpretation of the criteria.

Further strategies may be found, for example, in White.(8)

These principles are rarely applied by staff to their own marking tasks so it may beunduly optimistic to expect to see them used extensively with student markers. Thereare additional educational reasons why they should be used with students, however.For example, Gibbs(9) and Ballard and Clanchy(10) would argue that it is veryimportant for students to be involved in considering and using criteria which will beapplied to their work if they are to learn effectively, whether or not they are involvedin formal self-assessment exercises. Unless students can appreciate what requirementsgood work in their chosen field should satisfy it is unlikely that they will be able tocontribute effectively themselves.

There are alternatives to the direct use of student marks which have been used,some of which have the benefits identified by Gibbs and Ballard and Clanchy. I haveadapted a number of them either in my own teaching in education or in collaborationwith university teachers of other subjects ranging from engineering to law.

2. Strategies for incorporating student self-marking

Each one is described briefly and its advantages and disadvantages noted. Where thereis potential for the saving of staff time this is noted.

(a) Self-assessment schedules with marks justified and moderated by staff

Students prepare a statement of what they have achieved in the form of a self-assessment schedule,(11) and assign a total mark (and a justification for it) to thesedocumented achievements according to their interpretation of the grading policy of thecourse. The performance of each student in agreed areas is independently assessed bystaff following a reading of the self-assessment schedule, but without knowledge of thespecific mark awarded by the student, and a staff mark recorded. If the marks from thetwo sources are within, say, 5 or 10 per cent of each other, students are formallyawarded their own mark. If there is a greater discrepancy than this, discussions takeplace in which the justifications for the marks are explained. If there is no agreementfollowing this meeting, a totally independent assessment based on the documentedevidence is made by a third party.

An advantage of this approach is that students can present all their achievementsfor consideration by staff and, if there are disagreements, the rationale for marking canbe explained. However, students can find it difficult to arrive at a mark in a norm-referenced grading context when they do not have access to the work of more thanone or two others.

* A self-assessment schedule is a document prepared by students at the end of a course whichidentifies their original goals for the course and those which have emerged for them, the criteriawhich they believe should apply to each of these, the evidence which they have which indicatesthe extent of their achievement, and the judgements which they make of their degree of successin each area.(11)

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(b) Self-marks moderated by peers

Another approach is to have one or more student peers also mark the individual andhave work of individuals with discrepancies between self and peer scores re-marked bystaff. For example, in a study of the marking of a mid-course electrical engineeringexamination, Boud and Holmes(2) had students use detailed model answers to markanonymously one other student's paper and, the following week, their own. Theyargued that the gap between sitting for the examination and marking their own helpedstudents to gain a little distance on their work and the experience of marking another'spaper enabled them to appreciate the model answers more fully than if they had to usethem immediately to assess their own paper. The self-mark and the peer-mark werethen compared and staff only remarked those where there was a discrepancy greaterthan that expected from the normal error. Random checking of other papers was usedto encourage students to take the exercise seriously and to check for marking con-sistency. Even allowing for the extra time spent in preparing model answers, admin-istration of examination scripts and remarking, Boud and Holmes estimated that stafftime could be saved (and an acceptable mark produced) compared to normal staffmarking procedures in classes with more than 20-60 students.

A disadvantage for some in this approach is the pressure on staff — although theyspend less time, the time they do spend is on more challenging matters than marking —and there is also the danger that if the scheme is not administered carefully, studentswill collude with each other and undermine its intentions.

(c) Criteria generated by peers

One of the factors which contributes to the lack of reliability of student marking isthat, relative to staff, students have a less well developed sense of the criteria whichshould be used to judge their work and they may find it difficult to interpret effect-ively criteria with which they are provided. A strategy used by Boud and Tyree(discussed in 1) is to involve students in a group exercise to establish a common set ofcriteria for an assignment for the whole class and to use the specific criteria which aregenerated by this process as the yardsticks for judging individual performance. Anominal group process is used to identify and refine criteria suggested by students.These criteria provide a checklist which students use to assess their own work. Theyhand in the completed checklist with their assignment.

This approach is particularly effective if students generate criteria which areendorsed by staff. Indeed, at the end of the criteria-generating phase studentscommonly ask staff whether the list they have produced is acceptable. In the caseswhere such an approach has been used, staff have been impressed with the range ofthoroughness of the criteria generated. If it is used in conjunction with staff marking,it is necessary for staff and students to adopt the same marking strategy with thegiven criteria.

(d) Weighting for the quality of self assessment only

If self-assessment is to be encouraged, it is not necessary for students marks to beweighted at all. In the context of self-assessment in a mechanical engineering design

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course students were marked by staff on the quality of their self-assessment as if thiswere one of the assignments for the course (contributing 4% of total marks). Studentswho had not performed well on other assessment measures could score highly if theywere perceptive in their self-assessment and could pinpoint their weaknesses. Otherwisehigher scoring students could perform poorly on their self-assessment if they had littleawareness of their strengths and weaknesses.(3)

This approach turns self-assessment into another course assignment and may lead toit being regarded simply as a barrier to be overcome in the quest for good marks. Itcolludes with the attitude that students should not expect to do anything unless it ismarked. However, it can encourage critical self-assessment.

(e) Marks count after practice and demonstration of student competence in self-assessment

One of the main difficulties in using student marks in most contexts is that studentshave had very little opportunity to develop their self-assessment skills. It is thereforenot surprising that they are not as effective as they might be. Another strategy forcounting self-marking is that students' marks only be used after they have demon-strated that they could be reliable appraisers of their own work through doing so on anumber of occasions of type (d) above or simply as part of formative assessmentactivities. Of course, knowledge that students can mark themselves reliably is noguarantee that they will indeed do so.

A variation on this strategy in which a lecturer persevered with students producingmanifestly inappropriate mid-course marks, but trusting them to be realistic in the endis discussed by Cowan.(4) His thoughtful reflections on the process of facilitatingstudent self-assessment are helpful for anyone embarking on this approach to assess-ment. He particularly draws attention to the importance of making a commitment tothe process from the start and maintaining trust in students even when for considerableperiods they may be producing results which would in other circumstances be un-acceptable. Through establishing and fostering a climate in which students can be self-critical without the continual imposition of teacher's standards, he demonstrates thatformal self-assessment can have an extraordinarily positive influence on the quality oflearning.

Two other examples which have been widely used are:

(f) Use of learning contracts

Learning contracts are being increasingly used in tertiary institutions as a means ofmanaging self-directed learning; they can also be used to manage self-assessment.(12,13)

In a course which uses learning contracts, each student writes a contract whichspecifies goals and objectives for a particular task, the approach to learning which willbe adopted, the criteria which will be used to judge success and the mechanism formaking judgements (by specified others who may be neither staff nor students). Thiscontract is discussed with a staff member and, after negotiation and modification ifnecessary, it forms the basis for work for a programme for a given course. Contractscan include criteria for specific grades.

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Procedures for determining the role of self-assessment may vary from one contractto another and there can be difficulties with consistency over all students.

(g) Grade contracting

This is a variation on the theme of learning contracts / 1 4" 2 2^ In grade contractingstudents set their own goals and specify which grade they intend to aim for and thecriteria which would indicate success. After negotiation and approval, students auto-matically get their chosen grade if they satisfy the contracted requirements.

The disadvantage of grade contracting is that it locks students into a particulargrade in advance: they can end up with no grade at all if they aim high and just miss,or they can obtain a lower grade than they would normally be awarded if their workis clearly superior to the grade level which they have set in advance.

To summarise, situations in which the use of student marks may be legitimate arewhen:

(a) there is a high trust, high integrity learning environment;(b) students are rewarded for high integrity marking;(c) marks are moderated by staff so that deviations from staff marks need to be

justified;(d) blind peer marking is used as a check;(e) random staff marking is used as a check;(0 a major goal is the achievement of effective self-assessment and students have had

ample opportunity to practice and develop their skills;(g) the criteria against which achievement is to be judged have been sufficiently un-

ambiguously defined for there to be little scope for misinterpretation of gradeboundaries;

(h) effort is explicitly excluded as a criterion.

Some of these are mutually exclusive. Different approaches may be required forlarge classes and those with multiple staff members. What can be done when there is aclose relationship between teacher and students is very different from when there aremass enrolments.

The weighting given to self-assessment can vary greatly: in the examples given above,from 4 to 100 per cent. Clearly, the risks involved in having a somewhat unreliableform of marking are much greater when the entire formal assessment is based upon onemeasure.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

This paper has attempted to open up discussion on the use of self-assessment forformal assessment purposes through focusing on research and development investig-

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ations which have been undertaken. These have often been pragmatic, dealing with aparticular problem in a given situation. There are many other issues of a philosophical,conceptual and ethical nature which could not be addressed within the scope of thispaper. There is a need for further studies of both a theoretical kind to clarify the issuesinvolved and empirically to explore what can be done in real situations with typicaltime and resource constraints.

Experience to date suggests that there needs to be a balance between a system whichis so restrictive that student involvement is eliminated and self-assessment effectivelydiscouraged, and a completely trusting system which is open to abuse, particularly inhighly competitive, low trust, professional courses. How this balance is to be achievedin a given context is a challenge to the professional judgement of staff.

As far as particular research is concerned there seems to be a need for:

(a) Studies on the psychodynamics of assessment and the influence of contextualfactors: what leads to "cheating"? what are the circumstances in which studentswill make fair and reasonable self-appraisals? what features of a self-assessmentprocess encourage a self-critical approach?

(b) Further monitoring of innovations in self-assessment to determine which can beused more widely and in which circumstances they can be adopted. This caninvolve both replication studies of the strategies discussed above in differentcontexts and also the development of other innovative approaches. There is greatpotential for various forms of peer involvement in this area.

(c) The use of collaborative approaches to research to take account of student per-spectives as well as those of staff (see Reason and Rowan).(23) Students haveaccess to their own knowledge in a way that staff can never have. Research needsto be undertaken which respects this feature and enables the student perspectiveto be properly incorporated into our understanding.

In whatever research is undertaken there needs to be a greater emphasis on therelationship between learning and self-assessment. The use of a relational approach tostudying learning and assessment (discussed by Ramsden et al) ( 2 4 ) could be readilyapplied to self-assessment. This approach considers learning as a change in a person'sconceptions of the world and focuses on the relationship between learners and themillieux in which they find themselves. Assessment is an important part of the contextof learning and the way in which learners interpret assessment requirements can have avery powerful influence on what they do and what they construe. Different forms ofassessment can influence different learning outcomes and can lead to either superficialor meaningful learning. Experience so far (4) suggests that some forms of self-assessmentcan encourage students to engage in meaningful learning of a more sophisticated kindthan otherwise. This needs to be explored further and the processes and outcomes ofself-assessment explicated.

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REFERENCES

(1) BOUD, D. J. (1986): Implementing Student Self-Assessment. Sydney: Higher EducationResearch and Development Society of Australia.

(2) BOUD, D. J. and W. H. HOLMES (1981): "Self and Peer Marking in an Undergraduate Engin-eering Course". IEEE Transactions on Education E-24, 4, 267-274.

(3) BOUD, D. J., A. CHURCHES and E. M. SMITH (1986): "Student Self-Assessment in an Engin-eering Design Course: An Evaluation". International Journal of Applied Engineering Education,2, 2, 83-90.

(4) COWAN, J. (1988): "Struggling with Student Self-Assessment". In D. J. BOUD (ed.) DevelopingStudent Autonomy in Learning, Second Edition, London: Kogan Page, 192-210.

(5) HEYWOOD, J. (1977): Assessment in Higher Education. London: John Wiley.

(6) BOUD. D. J. (in preparation, a): Quantitiative Studies of Student Self-Assessment in HigherEducation: A Critical Analysis of Findings.

(7) ORPEN, C. (1982): "Student Versus Lecturer Assessment of Learning: A Research Note".Higher Education, 11, 567-572.

(8) WHITE, E. M. (1985): Teaching and Assessing Writing. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

(9) GIBBS, G. (1981): Teaching Students to Learn. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press.

(10) BALLARD, B. and J. CLANCHY (in press): "Literacy in the University: an 'Anthropological'Approach". In G. TAYLOR et al. (eds.) Literacy by Degrees. Milton Keynes: The Open Univer-sity Press.

( 1 1 ) BOUD, D. J. (in preparation, b): The Self Assessment Schedule: A Device for Evaluating Self-Directed Learning.

(12) KNOWLES, M. S. (1975): Self-Directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers. NewYork: Association Press.

(13) KNOWLES, M. S. and Associates (1986): Using Learning Contracts. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

(14) SHIRTS, M. A. (1968): "The College Grade Contract". The Educational Forum, 32, 4, 456-458.

(15) O'KANE, J. M. (1971): "Having Students do the Grading". Improving College and UniversityTeaching, 19, 331-332.

(16) POPPEN, W. A. and C. L. THOMPSON (1971): "The Effect of Grade Contracts on StudentPerformance". Journal of Educational Research, 64, 9, 420-424.

(17) TAYLOR, H. (1971): "Student Reaction to the Grade Contract". Journal of EducationalResearch, 64, 7, 311-314.

(18) WARNER, D. A. and T. AKAMINE (1972): "Student Reactions to College Grade Contracts".The Educational Forum, 36, 389-391.

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(19) BEELER, K. D. (1976): "A Student Self-Evaluation Tool". Humanistic Educator, 14, 3, 104-113.

(20) POLCZYNSKI, J. J., and L. E. SHIRLAND (1977): "Expectancy Theory and Contract Gradingas an Effective Motivational Force for College Students". Journal of Educational Research, 70,238-241.

(21) PARKS, A. G. and H. S. ZURHELLEN (1978): "Student Attitudes Towards the Grade Con-tract". Improving College and University Teaching, 26, 4, 239-242.

(22) HASSENCAHL, F. (1979): "Contract Grading in the Classroom". Improving College and Uni-versity Teaching, 27, 1, 30-33.

(23) REASON, P. and J. ROWAN (eds.) (1981): Human Inquiry: A Sourcebook of New ParadigmResearch, Chichester: John Wiley.

(24) RAMSDEN, P., G. MASTERS. J. BOWDEN and E. MARTIN (forthcoming): "Assessing theElements of Competence: A Relational Approach". Research and Development in HigherEducation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following for helpful discussions on the topic of this paper: Nancy Falchikov,Jackie Lublin, Peggy Nightingale, Mike Prosser and Wendy Richards.

Paper received: May 1988

Further details from:David Boud,Tertiary Education Research Centre,University of New South Wales,Kensington,NSW 2033.

Based on a paper presented at the Annual Conference ofThe Higher Education and Research Society of Australasia,

University of Melbourne, 13-16 May 1988

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