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Exploring the Alignment of Instructor’s Intent and Students’ Perception of Using Self-Assessment in an Engineering Undergraduate Course

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Student Assessments and Tests

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM)

Page Count

13

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43632

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43632

Download Count

346

Paper Authors

biography

Viyon Dansu Florida International University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-8543-9930

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Viyon had his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Systems Engineering. Thereafter he co-founded STEM-Ed Africa, a social enterprise involved in developing products and services geared at teachers' development and improving high school student's problem-solving abilities in STEM subject areas. He is currently a doctoral student of engineering and computing education at Florida International University, Miami.

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biography

Yashin Brijmohan University of Nebraska Lincoln Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-2485-9808

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Yashin Brijmohan is a registered professional engineer who is currently appointed as Chairman of Engineering Education Standing Technical Committee of the Federation of African Engineering Organizations, Executive committee member of the Commonwealth Engineers Council, Board Member of the UNESCO International Centre for Engineering Education, and Co-Chair of the Africa Asia Pacific Engineering Council.

He was the founding Executve Dean of Business, Engineering and Technology at Monash South Africa, former Vice President of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, and led several committees in the engineering profession.

Yashin has both leadership and specialist experience within the engineering power industry and education sectors and is known for his thought leadership in capacity building and engineering education.

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biography

Nathaniel Hunsu University of Georgia

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Nathaniel Hunsu is an assistant professor of Engineering Education. He is affiliated with the Engineering Education Transformational Institute and the school of electrical and computer engineering at the university. His interest is at the nexus of the res

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Abstract

Self-assessments are used in higher education to spur students to metacognitive learning engagements. In the process of self-assessing, students activate self-regulatory functions that enable students to take ownership of their own learning. Self-assessment activities include students reflecting on, evaluating, and monitoring their own learning performances. Students who self-assess are better able to identify areas they need to improve upon, and to determine the most appropriate courses of action to achieve academic success. However, little is known about the congruence in students’ perception of self-assessment and instructor's intent in requiring self-assessments. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions of engineering students who participated in self-assessment in an engineering course and how their perspective of the experience compares with the intent of self-assessments by the course instructor. The study further investigates students’ positive and negative experiences while engaging with the self-assessment process.

This investigation is an exploratory study that uses a collective case study design. Participants are 121 undergraduate students who enrolled in an engineering class and the course instructor at a R1 public university in Southeastern USA. Data for the study was collected using a qualitative survey that included questions that required students to reflect on their experience and type their responses to prompts that probe their perception of the purpose, benefits, and difficulties of self-assessment activity they engaged in. In addition, the instructor’s intent of using self-assessment was obtained through a semi-structured interview session.

The data were coded and analyzed using the NVivo data analysis software. A deductive thematic analysis was conducted on participants’ responses using the self-regulation framework proposed by Zimmerman [15] and McMillan and Hearn [8]. The final codebook was based on the guiding framework and multiple iterations of coding and engaging in critical reviews of codes by peer debriefers.

The results showed students’ perceived purpose, benefits, and difficulties of self-assessments. Further, findings revealed that self-assessment aided students’ understanding, helped them reflect on their learning and in identifying learning gaps. There was some alignment found between the overall students’ perspectives of the purpose of self-assessment and the intent of self-assessment by the instructor. The knowledge from this study could help instructors on ways to elicit informed feedback about their courses from students. This could in turn help in the redesign of instructional course materials to maximize students’ learning gain.

Keywords: Self-assessment, Student learning, Engineering education, Self-regulation, Metacognition, Motivation, Autonomy

Dansu, V., & Brijmohan, Y., & Hunsu, N. (2023, June), Exploring the Alignment of Instructor’s Intent and Students’ Perception of Using Self-Assessment in an Engineering Undergraduate Course Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43632

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