Students' Objectivity and Perception of Self Assessment in an EFL Classroom

Various problems have been associated with the introduction of self assessment for evaluation purposes, and in particular students' lack of accuracy. However, several research studies have demonstrated that students are able to assess themselves accurately and that there can be from moderate to high degrees of correlation between teacher and student assessments. In this article, we report on a study aimed at 1) comparing students' oral self assessment with those of teachers' and 2) inquiring as to students' attitude toward self assessment. Data were collected from 94 students who were given training in self assessment. Students' scores were correlated with teachers' scores using the Pearson correlation coefficient. Students were also given a questionnaire which examined their feelings about self assessment. Results of the study showed from moderate to high correlations between teachers' and students' self evaluations and positive attitudes toward self assessment. The implications for the classroom are: 1) self assessment needs to be done on a continuous basis with constant guidance from the teacher, 2) cultural acceptance of self assessment needs to be raised, 3) students need to be provided with help on the use of self assessment as a means to identify cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies, and 4) teachers need to be trained for student autonomy.