Student participation in assessment: Does it influence self-regulation?

Typically, assessment is viewed as a process in which a person with more expertise (e.g., a teacher) evaluates a more novice individual (e.g., a student) using multiple sources of information to make this evaluation (e.g., tests, observations of student behavior [AERA, APA, & NCME, 1999]). In these relationships, there is an assumed hierarchy between teacher and student in the evaluation process, with the teacher having considerable power over the student and, thus, potentially regulating students’ behavior. However, the argument exists that children taking an active role in assessment increases their self-regulation (Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006), which, in turn, has been shown to have positive benefits for student achievement ( Pintrich & De Groot, 1990 ).