Self-assessment criteria as projected realities: a social cognitive study on student experience in postgraduate thesis writing

• Published in: Language and education Vol. 38; no. 5; pp. 766 - 780
• Main Authors: Pu, Shi, Xu, Hao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 02.09.2024; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Academic writing; assessment criteria; Dissertations & theses; Evaluation; independent thinking; postgraduate study; Scholarship; Self evaluation; self-assessment; Socialization; Students; thesis writing; Writing processes
• ISSN: 0950-0782; 1747-7581
• DOI: 10.1080/09500782.2024.2377375

While research on postgraduate thesis writing has investigated how students cope with institutional assessment criteria, this study explores how students form their own criteria for self-assessment through the writing process, aiming to account for the development of their independent thinking in academic socialisation. Based on in-depth interviews with 10 Chinese master's students, the study found that their self-assessment criteria not only represented solutions to problems identified by their supervisors and examiners, but also embodied aims established by students themselves. Those criteria were not fixed textual properties of a 'good' thesis, but were dynamic representations of textual and social realities constituting students' lifeworlds. Viewed from this perspective, self-assessment is a situated process whereby students re-experience and re-interpret multiple sets of realities juxtaposed against their writing. Pedagogically, the study implies that postgraduate thesis supervision could facilitate the expansion of students' self-assessment criteria to develop their capacity for making independent judgements.