Page 64 - International Journal of Process Educaiton (Special Issue)

assessment until 2011 when Desjarlais and Smith
adapted content from the Faculty Guidebook to create the
Methodology for Self-Assessment (see Figure 4). This
methodology is relatively strict and can be used to produce
a formal self-assessment report, but even if a more casual
self-assessment is sought, the Methodology’s steps provide
a kind of perception check so that casual self-assessment
does not devolve into unproductive reflection or, worse,
self-evaluation.
During a Developmental Math Institute, participants
collaborated on the creation of a performance measure
for self-assessment. The measure has been edited and is
available in the Book of Measures (Pacific Crest, 2013).
Tools to Improve Self-Assessment
A self-assessment form was included in Learning
Assessment Journal (Carroll & Apple, 1995), to help
students analyze their strengths, produce improvements
with action plans, clarify insights, determine how they
helped others and were helped in turn, and to identify
concepts learned, knowledge integrated, and any new
discoveries. This SII model (Strengths, Areas for
Improvement, Insights) builds metacognitive skills by
tasking students with producing insights — discoveries
made from performing the assessment — and increasing
their awareness of their own experiences, a kind of
reflective practice (see the Reflection section). The 3rd
edition of the Learning Assessment Journal (Apple, 2000)
offered a revised self-assessment form which included
space for faculty to assess the student’s self-assessment.
This innovation was the product of much thinking and
many conversations about obtaining student buy-in,
creating an assessment culture, the importance of assessing to Learn: Becoming a Self-Grower (Apple, Morgan, &
self-assessments, why and how to provide criteria, and
the role of peer assessment in the student development of
self-assessment (Dan Apple, personal recollection). The
tools available for increasing the practice and quality of
self-assessment have proliferated and while many stand
alone in the Student Success Toolbox (such as the SII Self-
Assessment form; Pacific Crest, 2011), many more have
been integrated into student learning curricula (see Self-
Assessment in Student Curricula which follows).
Scholarship Focused on Self-Assessment
The thinking that led to the revised self-assessment tool
as well as previous scholarship on self-assessment was
formalized in several modules published in the Faculty
Guidebook (all 2007):
 SII Method for Assessment Reporting (Wasserman &
Beyerlein)
 Moving Towards an Assessment Culture (Utschig)
62 International Journal of Process Education (February 2016, Volume 8 Issue 1)
 Turning Evaluation into Assessment (Watson)
 Practical Implementation of Self-Assessment Jour-
nals (Miller)
 Assessing Assessments (Anderson & Watson)
The International Journal of Process Education has
also featured some strong scholarship focused on self-
assessment. Desjarlais and Smith’s A Comparative Analysis
of Reflection and Self-Assessment (2011) is especially
valuable for the self-assessment methodology it offers, but
also because it serves to inform the learning experience
focused on self-assessment in Learning to Learn: Becoming
a Self-Grower (Apple, Morgan, & Hintze, 2013). In What
is Self-Growth? (2015), Jain, Apple, and Ellis present self-
assessment as the key component of self-growth, illustrating
how self-assessment relates to the other nine components
of self-growth. The goal is to help faculty increase their
own ability to self-assess, as well as to help their students
develop this same ability. In Identifying At-Risk Factors
That Affect College Student Success (2015), Horton points
out that being a self-evaluator is one of the top 20 factors
that put academic success at risk for learners, generally by
fostering low self-esteem or depression. Students who self-
evaluate rather than self-assess are “constantly self-critical,
see only their mistakes and failures, and do not appreciate
growth or improvement.”
Self-Assessment in Student Curricula
The practice of self-assessment is part of the activity/
experience design found in Foundations of Learning (4th
ed.) (Redfield & Hurley Lawrence, 2009) and in Learning
Hintze, 2013). Each chapter of Foundations of Learning
ends with a prompt for the student to complete a self-
assessment. As the introduction explains,
This is your opportunity to compare the Learning
Objectives with your actual outcomes for each
chapter. This is not about a grade, but about
improving your performance. As such, you
will assess your performance by sharing and
describing 1) a strength you exhibited, 2) an area
in which you could improve your performance,
and 3) an insight you experienced while working
through that chapter.
Additionally, Chapter 13, Assessment for Self-
Improvement, echoes Klopp (1996) on the importance of
being able to “look at oneself with as little distortion as
possible,” in explaining the importance of being able to
objectively view one’s self and to separate the performance
from feelings one has about that performance.
Chapter 4 of Learning to Learn: Becoming a Self-Grower
is titled, “Self-Assessment: The Engine of Self-Growth,”