Impacts of Self-Assessment on Students’ Self-Regulated Learning and Satisfaction at a University Foreign Language Pedagogy Course

Impacts of Self-Assessment on Students’ Self-Regulated Learning and Satisfaction at a University Foreign Language Pedagogy Course

The study is aimed at exploring impacts of self-assessment on students’ self-regulated learning and satisfaction at a university setting. Twenty-one students taking a foreign language pedagogy course participated in the study. Weekly self-assessment was assigned for 8 weeks to see if it improved students’ self-regulated learning. Student questionnaire was collected twice on the 7th and the 15th week; in addition, in-depth interviews were conducted to gather students’ perceptions of self-assessment in terms of its benefits and drawbacks. Findings based on quantitative and qualitative analysis are as follows. Firstly, significant positive impacts of self-assessment were found in all three domains of self-regulated learning: cognitive, motivational, and behavioral. Secondly, students found self-assessment overall satisfactory and useful in their studies. In-depth interviews further revealed that self-assessment helped to regulate their study behaviors effectively, which, in turn, led to a better understanding of the subject matter and greater participation in class activities. At the same time, however, some students expressed some burden as a drawback of self-assessment. Pedagogical implications and research suggestions for future study were discussed.