Chapter 6: Students’ experiences of the participative assessment process 6.1 Introduction
6.7 Participative assessment and metacognitive development
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future professional development, both as receiver of critical feedback and as future managers providing such critique (see Boud and Falchikov, 2006 in 4.1.3.F).
[I]f we are going to become useful effective managers who want to get the best out of their subordinates we have to take responsibility for them and you say,
‘This is what we want to do, this is what we want to achieve, how can I help you to get us to where we want to go? And how can you help me?’ (S16: 2273- 2283).
A related finding was the degree to which the process encouraged students to become more autonomous in their learning by looking at their own work more critically instead of relying on lecturers for validation and feedback (see Race, 2001 in 4.2.5). Several students reported that this shift in approach resulted from their involvement in their own assessment and through the collaborative exchanges they engaged in with the lecture once their self- assessments were completed. This was evident in the following representative remark:
[I]n the end if I take the voice of the assessor – I mean me – I think it helps me to come up with a better product. If I choose to stick to this defensive me, I’ll have my product, but it will not be as good as it could have been if I were to get the advice of the assessor part of me (S04: 3253-3256).
Having to return to their completed assessment tasks during the self-assessment process helped students to see their work through different lenses and this, they felt, clearly contributed towards enhancing the quality of work delivered and their own learning. As S02 observed, “if you can criticize your own work and see your own strengths and weaknesses you can learn something from that” (S02: 2536-2544) (see Boud, 2000 in 4.1.3.F). In a related observation, S11 said the process had provided her with an opportunity for valuable introspection through which she had made some difficult discoveries about her own approach to learning. “I think I tend to focus more on the strengths, I wish everyone would focus on the strengths, and not my weaknesses and I think it’s time to face my weaknesses” (811-813).
For many the experience brought home the importance of critically re-reading their work before submission rather than simply proof-reading assignments for typing, spelling and grammatical errors. S13’s views were illustrative of this general experience:
Of late I’ve realised that every time I have to hand in my assignment I have to look at it again. I have to assess myself in terms of the content, how I’ve understood the theory and stuff, which is stuff that I only learned from this process, so it’s quite helpful and I think most of the lessons from there will be part of my future learning (3686-369).
In this respect, S06’s remark that: “It was difficult having to go and read back again, but it’s also a very important skill to learn: something I’d wished I learned earlier (706-709) was
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broadly illustrative. The longer term impact (sustainable benefits) of these lessons for some students was evident in S11’s representative description of how her approach to the completion of assessment tasks had changed as a result of the participative assessment process.
Let me talk about the assignments I did afterwards. I found myself reading over sentences and [while in the past] it would be ‘okay, I’ve said that point, let’s move onto the next point’, now it was ‘okay, wait, I’ve written that but is it going to make sense to the person that reads it?’ So then you read it in a way that would make sense to someone else. I find myself being careful with what I say. I think it’s also helped me to have less mistakes. Like, for example the assignment I did after the leadership philosophy, it got better marks, much better marks, actually (S11: 3350-3362).
Notably, for some students, becoming more self-critical of their work also involved recognising the areas where they did have strengths, which contributed to enhancing the student’s confidence.
I think part of it was that this process helped me … realise that along with my faults I have strengths. So I milked the strengths. I have an ability, I can actually recognise this now, to – most times, not always – to understand the big picture (ibid.).
Students also observed that lesson learned in this respect would have important implications for their professional development. Being self-critical in an academic environment can help to enhance both learning and grades, but in the workplace the failure to recognise and address weaknesses can have severe consequences.
[A]t the end of the day when we go out into the industry, in the world, you are going to be the first assessor of your work, you are not going to pass your work to your boss when you don’t feel it is the right standard of work. So, it’s going to be very important, because it gives you the confidence to actually hand in work and to know that you have done it to the best of your ability (S02: 2546- 2552).
A further finding that flowed out of the students’ recognition of the need to be more critical of their own work related to their enhanced understanding of the importance of managing time effectively. Several students observed that in learning to be critical they had also learned the importance of starting tasks earlier to ensure that, having identified problems, they had sufficient time to make revisions.
… this is not like a huge revolutionary thing in my life, but one thing that has changed and that I think will continue to change, is that when it comes to work I give myself time. I never used to give myself time. I went through my undergrad rushing through things; I recognise that is a weakness I had. I find myself fighting for my time now. I’m like, you know what, I’m going to need this time to do this properly and if it means starting five hours earlier just to
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make sure that I get everything that I want to get into that assignment, then I will do that (S11: 3377-3385).
While the students’ acknowledgement of the importance of effective time management was an unexpected finding, it is still consistent with the kinds of learning I had hoped would emerge from this process and it is consistent with Stefani’s (1998) views on how participative assessment can aid students in becoming independent and autonomous learners.