Self Assessing Grades: A Small Experiment with Large Implications

Today was standard Science 8 class which was to start with a quiz. However, I read something recently that got me thinking; John Hattie, in his book Visible Learning for Teachers, mentioned that self reporting grades was "the top-ranked effect relating to student expectations." I though I would test that hypothesis.

Before I handed the quiz out, I asked the students, on a sticky note, to predict their score. I told them exactly how many questions were on each topic, but without telling them the exact question itself. The chart below shows how they did.

Interestingly, out of the 13 students, 8 predicted their actual score to within one point, while the rest were only off by only two. The accuracy is uncanny! What does this mean with respect to education? I wonder if perhaps, as Hattie suggests, our goal with tests such as these are not to "assess" their knowledge - the student already knows that and, perhaps, the teacher could even predict how well each one would do. Instead, perhaps a change in focus needs to happen. Perhaps we as teachers need to change our role from helping them to meet their potential (which they already know) to exceeding their potential! What happens if each student could be pushed beyond their view of what they know?

Let me say it this way: if the students already know how they will do and what they know, then our instruction and assessment is simply giving us, the teacher, a quantitative number to that knowledge. However, where is the pushing and stretching? Is the knowledge at too safe a level? Yes, I am proud all of these students did well on the quiz, but if they already knew how well they would do, why do the quiz at all?

I would encourage us all to push the limits when it comes to what students can do. This doesn't mean simply more knowledge, but I think a deeper understanding of concepts (higher order thinking). The quiz above were all one word surface answers with only one question that needed a sentence response. It was a "quiz" and there was nothing wrong with administering it. However, if our assessment is based solely on these types of summative evaluations (with perhaps longer questions and even an essay here or there on pros and cons or similarities and differences) then it might just be easier to ask them what mark they will get and move on from there.

What if the student was pushed beyond their comfort zone and into the actual place where they will "learn" something they would not have known previously? Isn't that what we want teaching to do?