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Evidence In Brief just shared a new study that found student self-assessment to be an effective strategy to support student learning.

The study itself is titled Effects of self-assessment on self-regulated learning and self-efficacy: Four meta-analyses, and is behind a paywall (though there are other ways to access it).

Evidence in Brief made some points about the study:

[It] examines the effects of self-assessment on self-regulated learning (SRL) and self-efficacy in four meta-analyses….The authors suggest that self-assessment is necessary for productive learning but note that the results have yet to identify the most effective self-assessment components (e.g., monitoring, feedback, and revision) in fostering SRL strategies or self-efficacy.

That may be true. However, after reading the entire paper, I was struck that it says the use of rubrics can be an effective student self-assessment tool.  BUT, it says, they were only effective after students helped create the rubrics after viewing a model example:

While students in the latter case (i.e. low effect sizes) participated in two self-assessment lessons, during which they used a rubric for essay writing to assess the quality of their drafts (Goodrich Andrade & Boulay, 2003), the students in the former (i.e. high effect size) also received rubrics articulating assessment criteria for essay writing. However, these students also participated in generating a list of criteria from a model paper (Andrade, Du, & Wang, 2008).

The reason I’m highlighting this point is because it dovetails with research shared by Doug Lemov and Dylan Wiliam suggesting that having students view examples is more effective than rubrics.

This research may suggest a middle-ground “best of all possible worlds” compromise between rubric use and studies suggesting use of work samples, instead.

I’m adding this post to:

The Best Rubric Sites (And A Beginning Discussion About Their Use)

The Best Resources On Student Self-Assessment