The Role of Classroom Assessment in Supporting Self-Regulated Learning

• In Event: Promoting College and Career Readiness Through Self-Regulated Learning in the Classroom

Abstract

Self-regulated learning (SRL) depends, in part, on information gleaned from classroom assessments about student learning and achievement. In this presentation we will discuss how classroom assessment is or could be used to support SRL. We will draw on the literatures on classroom assessment and SRL in order to demonstrate how assessment contributes to each phase of self-regulation, defined for this purpose as: 1) goal-setting, 2) progress monitoring, and 3) revision and adjustment (Allal, 2010).
Goal-setting is influenced by, among other things, the learning goals and success criteria shared by a teacher. Success criteria describe the qualities of excellent student work on a particular assignment, and can be communicated to students in a variety of ways, including via rubrics (Brookhart 2013), and exemplars or worked examples (Hattie 2009). Studies conducted in K-16 contexts (Andrade et al. 2010; Andrade et al. 2008; Lipnevich et al., 2014) strongly suggest that sharing success criteria with students can promote learning. Success criteria have also been used to support students in monitoring their progress toward goals.
Progress monitoring is affected by feedback provided via formative and summative assessments which can address the three key questions identified by Hattie and Timperley (2007): Where am I going? How am I going? and Where to next? Hattie and Timperley’s model includes four types of feedback:

1. Task level: How well tasks are understood and performed.
2. Process level: The main processes needed to understand and perform tasks.
3. Self-regulation level: Self-monitoring, regulating, and directing of actions.
4. Self-level: Personal evaluations of the learner.

They argue that self-level feedback (e.g., “Good girl”) is the least effective because it contains little task-related information. Feedback about processing and self-regulation are “powerful in terms of deep processing and mastery of tasks”, and “task feedback is powerful when the task information subsequently is useful for improving strategy processing or enhancing self-regulation (which it too rarely does)” (p. 91). Feedback targeted at any level can come from a variety of sources, including students themselves (Brown & Harris, 2014), their peers (Meusen-Beekman et al., 2014), teachers, and technology (Russell, 2011).
Revision and adjustment is affected by opportunities that students have to use feedback, and the decisions they make based on that feedback. If feedback is to be useful, it must be focused on criteria, describe reasonable next steps, and followed by opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance through revision (Andrade, 2010; Boud, 2000; Brookhart, 2013; Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick 2006). When self- or peer-generated feedback is part of a regular class routine, students share the feedback burden with teachers, and the likelihood of self-regulation is greater.
Because assessment is an integral part of most classroom activities, and SRL strategy instruction is most effective when it is embedded in an authentic learning context (Paris & Paris, 2001), classroom assessment presents a unique opportunity to support students in becoming successful learners. This presentation will present theory and research on how assessment can play a part in creating the conditions for student agency.

Authors

• Heidi L. Andrade, University at Albany - SUNY

• Susan M. Brookhart, Duquesne University