Journal Review

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Journal's Title:

Children’s self-assessment of their school work in elementary school

By:

Anastasia D. Elder*

Counseling and Educational Psychology, Mississippi State University, USA

(Received 19 June 2008; accepted 1 October 2008)

The writer’s research is to understand elementary student self-assessment that is how they reflect on their own learning in school.

Writer’s questions:

• From what sources do children gather information about their progress?
• What sorts of criteria or standards do students use in evaluating themselves?
• How does self-assessment change with age and schooling?

Some Theories:

1. Paris and Paris 2001, Self-regulated learning is a fundamental goal of education especially in elementary grades when foundations for independent learning are established.
2. Self-assessment refers to the process by which students come to gauge their level of performance and understanding.
3. Self-assessment has been discussed in reference to students’ metacognition (Andrade 1999; Paris and Paris 2001), self-efficacy beliefs (Chen 2006), and learning (van Kraayenoord and Paris 1997; Andrade 1999).
4. Towler and Broadfoot (1992) suggested that children’s academic self-assessment should be a central goal for elementary school teachers who wish to foster motivated, responsible learners but there is not evidence about how or what children use in their judgements.
5. Stipek and MacIver (1989), young children relied on feedback from others and socially prescribed behaviour when they form judgements about their competence whereas older children used social comparisons and individual standards more often.

The Research:

Making questioners to seventeen 6-7 years old and twenty 10-11 years old student from three classroom in a single public school at USA.

Some (not all) Questions:

• Sometimes children know how well they are doing at school because of what other people do or say. What sorts of things do other people say about your schoolwork that helps you know how you are doing?
• Sometimes children know how well they are doing at school from the things they do in school. What sorts of activities in your class help tell you how you are doing?
• Imagine that you have just finished writing a story, but you have not shown it to anyone yet. You think it is really good and are proud of it. How would you know it is an excellent piece of work? How do you judge when your work is really good?

Result and Discussions:

• Teachers are better able to help student o reach the standard while judging student progress on independent task.
• Teachers can help students invest effort, interpret their progress, promote the internalisation of academic standards, and gain a sense of self-efficacy.
• Older students appear not so much to replace others’ evaluations for their own but are amassing a variety of ways to evaluate their work that includes varied sources.

My opinion based on my experience:

Children self-assessment is really help his/her-self, parent and also the teacher. Children can measure their ability by them selves, for example, children will ask if they don’t understand or play anything else when they think they can. we maust know that this little kid assessment is egocentric. Teacher and parent should help and guide them in order to maximize child’s abilities. Self assessment needs somebody else only for give an indicator whether they are good or bad.  Children self-assessment need somebody else like parent, teacher, even their peers. Self assessment will help a child to develop their self-awareness.