Pedagogical Factors That Can Influence The Developmentof Students’ Self-Assessment Competencies

Abstract

Self-assessment in academia can be described as the students’ capacity to generate relevant judgments regarding their own academic achievement, either by reference to the educator's teaching objectives, previous academic achievements, or the academic outcome of their peers. The development of such self-evaluation competencies is greatly influenced by a number of both inner and outer psycho-pedagogical components, such as: learning motivation, level of cognitive development, academic performance, type of school assessment promoted by teachers, teacher's didactic style, student’s family, social and group status/membership, etc. Beginning from here, the aim of this research was to identify how students' academic performance can influence their self-assessment skills expressed by the level of objectivity of this process. The research sample consisted of 56 students, currently enrolled in the courses of the Training Program in Psychopedagogy and Methodology.Having undergone several self-assessment testsover the course of theiracademic years, the students were asked to self-assess their own exam-readiness while taking exams in two disciplines of academicstudy. The research results showed that students with high academic performance have a better capacity for didactic self-assessment, an aspect with major connotations in terms of their professional and personal development.

Keywords: Academic performances, objectivity, self-assessment competences, teaching strategies

Introduction

In accordance withthe established specialized literature (Stan, 2000), academic self-assessment targets the student’s capacity to formulate relevant judgements regarding their own academic skills and achievements, and furthermore, overall, about themselves. Namely, didactic self-evaluation refers to the connection set up between the student’s cognitive, emotional and practical competencies, which promote the attainment of academic performance as an expression of carrying out a certain learning task. These two aspects are, nevertheless, not always in direct relation. At times students may carry high availability, which nevertheless does not become actualized in performing an academic task at its optimal parameters. A reverse situation is also a possibility, wherein students achieve outstanding academic performance, while possessing low skills/competencies for that endeavour. In such instances, the role of didactic self-evaluation is to reflect precisely the actual level of their academic skills in order to promote the attainment of expected performance (Bradea, 2014).

Attempting a possible explanation for integrating self-assessment into the structure of the teaching act, Blândul (2014) estimates that the point of maximum confluencein the teacher-student relationship is represented by the latter’s actual academic performance. Thus, the teacher teaches by virtue of achieving educational goals and assesses the scope of their fulfillment according to the students’ actual performance. On the other hand, thestudents’learning activity is fulfilled byaccomplishing the academic performances they are qualified for and throughcontinuous self-assessment. In the event of discrepancies between the educational goals and the results obtained, therewill be adjustments made by the teacher in what regards the act of teaching/assessment, and in what the student is concerned regarding the act of learning/self-assessment. What follows from here is that didactic self-assessment is a process mediated both by the teacher’s assessment and by the efficiency of the student’s own activity in order to achieve the desired academic performance.

Problem Statement

According to specialized literature (Kiss, 2018), the means of achieving the instructional-educational process (expressed by the positive interdependency between teaching, learning and assessment) can play a significant role in building students’ self-assessment skillsof academic progress. Therefore, in the following paragraphs we will analyse how the implementation of the three aforementioned didactic processes can support students’ self-assessment in the most objective way possible.

Without intending to compare them, Maier (2014) complementarily tackles a few modalities of teaching competenciesand organizing teaching activities. On the one hand, there is the direct teaching/training in which the training events are „established”. Such a form of organization is best suited to a direct, traditional type of assessment. This comes to be a special point, in its own right, which takes on the form of summative assessment and uses, „classical” methods (oral questioning,graphic or practical tests, didactic tests, etc.). On the other hand, the author mentions a series of patterns of organization of didactic activities in which the students’ role, in terms of their active involvement in the teaching act is considerably increased. These are mentioned as follows: „holistic”training, cooperative learning, constructivism, „cyclical” themes etc. Theyare distinguishedby the fact that studentscan acquire useful learning strategies and information which they can then apply to concrete situations. Most likely, in the second case scenario, the traditional didactic assessment will berounded out with alternative forms, of which an important place could belong to academic self-assessment (Bradea, 2015).

As in the case of teaching, there are two trends that stand outwhenapproaching theories about academic learning: a traditional one in which the teacher acts as an instructorand the student is merely a passive receiver of information, respectively a modern one in which the student is actively and responsibly involvedin the learning activity with the teacher fulfilling the role of a mediator (Marian, 2018). The modalities of evaluating academic performance will be as follows: in the first situation it will be possible to use traditional methodology (which seems the most efficientwhen the student is regarded a mere„object” of teaching/learning), but it will be absolutely necessary to use an interactive self-assessment/ inter-assessment when students actively and consciously participate as „subjects” of the instructive-educational process.

As it has been shown, the main activity of the teacher(teaching), respectively of the student(learning) is carried out by virtue of achieving the predicted academic performances. These are assessed by the teacher according to pre-established educational goals, based on a well-defined set of criteria and using a series of docimological strategies (assessment methods and related tools). By respecting the constitutivesteps of this process, didactic assessment materializes into a grade, a characterization ora qualifier, elements with resonance in the cognitive and affective sphere of the student (Blândul & Bradea, 2022). The student’s interpretation of the results obtained can be materialized into the acceptance or non-acceptanceof the decision made by the teacher afterthe didactic assessment, a fact mediatedby a seriesof factorssuch as: the degree of objectivity and exigence of the teacher, subjective factors that can influence the didactic assessment, the value of explaining the results of the assessment, the concordance between the expected academic performances and those actually obtained,etc. Following the interpretationof the teacher’s decision after assessing the actual academic performances (process corroborated with self-assessment of these achievements), the student can accept – or not – this decision. In the first case scenario, the student will own and internalize thedecision, reconfiguringhisbehavior in the direction desired by the teacher. On the contrary, in case of non-acceptance of the teacher’s decision, the student, even if he follows the teacher’s instructions by virtue of the deontic authority wielded, could activate a series of defense mechanisms in order to adapt to the newly created situation: contesting the teacher’s decision, denying its validity, developing a reaction of aversion to that specific teacheror to the study subject they teach, minimizing the importance of that decisionto the point of even ignoring it or retaining only the aspects that place it into a favorable light, etc. Regarding the teacher, there is the possibility that the student imputes procedural flaws to the realization of the didactic assessment, to a certain degree chalking up to those its unsuccessfulness.All of these manifestations are aimed at the student’s desire to avoid devaluingtoo much his self-image, a predictable phenomenon in situations of lack of success. Restructuring one’s behavior andself-image will lead to a different approach to teaching and, implicitly, to new academicachievements and the cycle will repeat itself, this time at anotherlevel („spiral”evolution). Thus, the internalization of the teacher’s assessment and its transformation intoself-assessement can lead to the optimization of thestudent’s academic performances (Neacșu, 2011).

The formation of self-assessment competency is not a process that can be achieved „by itself” through the mere accumulation of didactic and social experiences. The crucial role falls upon the educator who serves as a role model to his students, who then select the behavior demonstrated in a certain context and gradually internalize it, through imitation. Practically speaking, while watching the teacher in an examination situation, the student will monitor the latter’stechnique (their intended goals, the criteriaaccording to which they guides themselves in formulating assessments, the methods and tools used, etc.), converting these sensory experiences (based on memory correlations) into experiences that are structured and unified at a greater cognitive level, manifested consequently into responses which are applicable to similar situations (becoming capable to adopt the comportment of an evaluator for oneself or for others). In fact, the teacher’s assessment, internalized thereafter by the student becomes self-assessment. Building upon theassessmentsmade by the teacher,students canbecome aware of the criteriaas well as of the academic requirementsutilized,subsequently adjustingtheiraspirations and behavior in order to meet these. Furthermore, teachers’ evaluations are also reflected in the manner in which students are perceived by their peers. Progressively, by personalizing these norms, the students will become able to get to know themselves better as well as more adequately settle themselves within the group they belong to (Marian, 2018). Hence the overwhelming importance the mostaccurate assessment of students’ achievements has on their further development. In order to be a more effective model for the formation of self-assessment skills in students, it is necessary for the teacher to embody the highest possiblemoral authority, provide them withclear-cut instructions as well as imitable behaviors that are well within their grasp (Blândul, 2015).

Research Questions

In this context, the formation of self-evaluation skills in students is becoming a high priority. Among the benefits sincere self-evaluation can have on the person in question are the accurate linkage of their own performances to those internalized through the training objectives and to those of others, increased self-confidence, self-awareness and proper use of one’s own abilities, respectively the minimization of one’s own limits, responsiblyowning up to one’sown status and rolein the community, building up a positive self-image, etc. (Pop, 2017). The importance of developing such qualities is paramount not only for the students concerned, but also for their future students, provided they will become teachers. It is well known that the best strategy for teaching others is by personal example, and an educator who is confident may develop into an inspirational leader for their students (Blândul, 2015).

Based on the previous paragraphs’findings, it can be noted that one of the main elements of interactive didactic evaluation is the schooling of students’ self-appreciation and self-assessment competencies. In order to do this it is needed to supply them with criteria (benchmarks) which they are able to comprehend and internalize through communication (Andrade & Brookhart, 2020). The changeover from assessment to self-assessment is not immediate, the entire process being a lengthy one and necessitating the engagement of all educational actors (Marinescu, 2021).

Consequently, this research aims to analyze some of the most important componentsof the university curriculum, which can contribute to the development and the formation of students’ self-evaluation skills, the role of the teacher as a mentor along these lines, as well as the impact the entire processmay have on the academic performance of the students involved. The answer to these challenges can help university educational agents optimize their teaching styles in order to increase the efficiency of academic performance and ensure an adequate insertion into the academic environment.

Purpose of the Study

The aim of this research was to identify how the curricular components of the teaching act (particularly academic performances) can influence thedevelopment of objective self-assessmentskills of academic progres in students. The main objectives of the research were the following: (1)the analysis of students’ ability to correctly assess their own academic performance while taking an exam in a given study subject; (2)establishing possible correlations between students’ didactic self-assessment and their academic performances in the relevantstudy subject, respectively(3) identifyinghow the administration of curricular components in a certain way may influence the formation and development of students’self-assessment skills. One may conclude that the holistic approach of the researchin light of the three objectives stated can offer a more complete image of the investigated phenomenon.

Research Methods

The research sample consisted of 56 students (N=56) from the Baptist Theology Faculty,currently attending the courses of the Training Program in Psycho-pedagogy and Methodology Level I, at the Emanuel Christian University in Oradea. The group of subjects had the following structure: Series 2019 / 2020 (32 students enrolled in theProgram în September 2019), respectively Series 2020 / 2021(24 students enrolled in the Program în September 2020).84,4% of the first series were females, while in the second series 87,5% were females. All students were between 20 and 23 years of age. The reason for selecting a sample made up of two series of subjects was the intention of conducting a longitudinal research in order to see how, over time,different students self-assess their own academic performance in reference to their actual academic performance.

In order to understand the way the research was designed and conducted, it is important to outline the structure of the Training Program in Psycho-pedagogy and Methodology,Level I. Thus, according to the nationally approved curriculum, in the first semester of the first year of study, students take „Psychology of Education”, followingit in the second semester with – „Fundamentals of Pedagogy. Theoryand Methodology of the Curriculum”,with other educational subjects coming up for study in future academic years. These were, in point of fact, the two study subjects included in the research. Bothseries of students making up the samplewere enrolled in their first year of study at the time of their selection. The research design involved the completion of two main stages. In the first (carried out during the weekly course meetingsover the course of the two semesters), the teacher insistedon clearly conveying the predetermined educational objectives, presenting useful and relevant teaching content, using highly interactive teaching strategies, respectively requesting consistent feedback from the students. In the second stage (carried outon the occasion of theexam session assessment for the twostudy subjectsstated), the teacher insistedon promoting a highly objective didacticassessment(carried out by means of competence testswith predominantly objective and semi-objective items, having clearassessmentscales and criteria, previously made known to the students). Students were also asked toself-assess the grade they felt they would receive after completing the didactic tests and give reasons for their choice. At the end, the academic results obtained were discussed with each student in turn. At the end of the first year of study, all participating students completed a 4-step Likert scale („Never”, „Seldom”, „Often” or „Always”( in which they were asked for their opinion on how the teacher should design and carry out the courses, with a focus on indicators such as: clarity of the formulated educational objectives, relevance and usefulness of the taught informational contents, the interactivity of didactic strategies used in teaching/learning/assessing, as well aspromotingan interactive didactic assessment. The quantitative interpretation of the research results was carried out by calculating the statistical frequency of instances in which the students underestimated, objectively assessed or overestimated themselves, students’ point averages of grades in the two study subjects, respectively the frequency of students’ answers to the items of the questionnaireadministered.

Findings

The research results are presentedcomparatively betweenSeries 2019 / 2020 andSeries 2020 / 2021 in the following tables.

The values presentedin Table 1 lead to some extremely interesting findings. First, there is an obvious polarization of the 2019 / 2020 Series students’ options towards underestimating their own academic performance, regardless of the study subject taken into account, with a more pronounced emphasis in case of „Educational Psychology”, followed by a slight improvement in case of the other subject. On the contrary, for students belonging to Series 2020 / 2021, the highest frecquency of responses seems to be around the option that indicates objective assessment, a much more obvious polarization being noted in case of „Fundamentals ofPedagogy”. It can also be noted that, for both groups of subjects, the objective self-assessment competencies of their own academic performance have increasedas training progressed and students became familiar with the teacher’sdidacticstyle, respectively to his requirements with respect to academic assessment. Another very interestingelementis that relatively few students in these two series tend to overestimate themselves, in comparison to those who underestimate themselves, regardless of the study subject analysed. Such an occurence could be explained bylacking self-confidence in one’s own abilities, due to delays in adapting to the teaching requirements of the university environment, orbeing uncertain in what regards the retentionvalidity of the content learned. Under such circumstances, it is very likely that students with better academic results have objectively self-assessed, while theirpeers who wereless confident in the study subject andscored less on their tests may have underestimated themselves.

The values presented in Table 2 are also extremely interesting and theyconfirm the tendency to underestimateof a substantial part of the group sample included in the research. The discrepancies are obvious for students fromthe 2019/2020series, given the fact that, for the subject„Psychology of Education” the gap is of 1.12 points,butdrops to 0.50 pointsfor the „Fundamentals of Pedagogy”. It follows from here that the students in this series have significantly developed theiracademic progressself-assessment skills, which is demonstrated, on the one hand, by an increase in the proportion of those who self-assess objectively, as well as the narrowing of the gap between the statistical point average of self-evaluated grades, respectively grades given by the teacher. The tendency topredict lower academic grades than actual ones remains even when it comes to students from the 2020/2021 series, along with a few observations. In the first case, the gap between the statistical grade point averages of the two categories of academic grades is much smaller, compared to theirpeers in the previous series. Secondly, bothpoint average categories are higher than those of their peers.This may indicate the presence of self-worth awarenessin these studentswho are cognizant of their level of preparedness and act in accordance with it. This fact is also demonstrated by the higher proportion of students who self-assessed objectively,a percentage that reached 60% in the „Fundamentals ofPedagogy”, given thefact that the point average of grades received was 9.60. It follows from here that well-preparedstudents who become aware of their preparedness level can develop a very good competency to self-evaluate their own academic achievement against the background of a high degree of self-confidence.

The first observation that emerges from the analysis of Table 3 is the polarization of the 56research subjects’ responses toward the higher values of the administred scale. There are, however, a few differences between the two series’student options for some of the investigated indicators. Thus, if the students belonging to series 2019/2020 are more categorical in selecting responses, preferring in most cases the option „Always”, those in the next series have more nuanced opinions, oriented towards the „Often” or „Rarely” options. Therefore, each course’s educational objectivesare clear and understandable to all students, even when the polarization of responses is more obvious for students belonging to the 2019/2020series. Students in this seriesfind thetaught information contentmore interesting than useful, while their peers from the following series have a slightly different view, considering that what they are taught in Educational Sciences will be more useful rather than attractive. Students belonging to the 2020/2021series appreciate, instead, the degree of interactivity of the didactic strategies used for teachingthe information content. A much clearer opinion comes from students from the 2019/2020 seriesin what regards the objectivity of the didactic assessment, in comparison to their peers from the followingseries, while they all agree thatself-assessmentm and inter-assessment are frequently used and necessary in the instructive-educational process. The analysis of these indicators (which express in fact, the curricular components present also in university teaching) suggeststhe idea of courses taught in an interactive manner, which implies the student’s involvement in the process of their own professional and personal development, being conducive to the development of their self-assessment/inter-assessment skills.

One of the possible limitations of this research is given by the heightened degree of subjectivity of academic assessments carried out through the application of online tools. Indeed, both common sense as well as some specialistsin psycho-pedagogy (Ceobanu et al., 2020; Guțu & Vicol, 2014; Marinescu, 2021) notice that both high-school and university students examined through the use of online strategies, have the tendency to overestimate themselves.The main justification brought forward is the fact that the educator can’t control the identity of the person actually solving the assessment task, nor under what conditions this process was completed. Other authors (Kaur et al.., 2020; Moffitt et al.., 2019) bring into discussiona numberofpsycho-individual factorsthat can influence student performance when it comes todistance assessment. Some of these are: the person’s state of mind at the time of solving the evaluation task, the time of day the assessment took place, preference for this type of evaluation resulting from the heightened degree of psycho-emotional comfort experienced by students at the time of taking the test, etc. One can also add that the test was not carried out in identical conditions by all the students, each one of them having the liberty to determine when and for how long they are willing to devote themselves to this activity (Petrovan, 2015). As a result of the COVID 19 pandemic, the 56 subjects that took part in this research were assessed online, with the exception of the 2019/2020 series of students, who in the „Psychology of Education” study subject were assessed by means of traditional oral examination strategies. As such, the subjective influence of the stated factors cannot be neglected, and the effects are given by the undeniably superior scores of students who took part in the courses, respectively were assessed online. Nevertheless, one should not disregard the fact that students belonging to the 2020/2021 series (who carried out didactic activities exclusively online) demonstrated superior acadermic performancesduring the weekly classes, as well as a much more involved carriage in the learning process as opposed to their previous series’ peers. In addition, the increased degree of self-assessment objectivityin what regards one’s own academic performance is a reality, a fact which could mitigate suspicions pertaining to the subjectivity of online teacher assessment.

Conclusions

Based on analysis of the results of this researchit can be acknowledged that the level of academic performances achieved by the studentsplays a particularly important role in the development of their objective self-assessment skills. It was found that students who achieve superior results in specialized exams possess a better ability to correctly anticipate their academic grades, and conversely, students with a high level of didactic self-assessment skills can optimize their academic performance level. However, itisvery important that the process of self-assessmentskilldevelopmentremain constant over time and becarried out in as great a number of studysubjectsfrom theacademic curriculum as possible. In order to support teachersinterested in promoting such educational practices, the following recommendations can be made (Blândul, 2014):

• Starting self-assessmentskilldevelopment as early as possible, in the first year of academicstudy;
• Continuousformationof self-knowledge/inter-knowledge skills;
• Initial presentation (given at the beginning of the activity) of assessment objectives students have to achieve, as well as the criteria forming the basis of assessments;
• Use of interactive teaching-learning-assessment strategies;
• The administration according to currentdocimological practice of certain self-assessment/inter-assessment strategies;
• Encouraging communication between students in solving different learning tasks;
• At the end of a work task: complete questionnaires which include questions that assess students’ own academic performances according to a series ofpreviously stated criteria (for example, steps taken in solving the given task, teaching methods used, progress achieved,difficulties encountered, optimization methods, etc.).

Under these conditions, rounding off the teacher’s didactic assessment with the students’ self-assessment is considerablysimplified. Given the fact that the three components of theteaching act areinextricably connectedto one another andco-evolving, the use of a certain typeof assessment is conditioned by the way in which the teaching or the learning was done.Therefore, in order to develop self-assessmentcompetency in students ,one mayconcludethat the mostappropriateform of teachingisthatwhichisbased on elements of criticalthinking, whichwillpromote active-participatorylearning, and – as alreadyshown – theassessmentwill not befocusedexclusivelyon content. This willcreate thepremises for a responsiblestudentinvolvement in theinstructional-educational process, elementswhich, corroboratedwithage or personality traits willlay the foundation of fair self-appraisal in relation to theirown performance and that of others.

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