Learning by doing: Do economics students self-evaluation skills improve?

This paper attempts to (1) measure the students’ ability to accurately self-evaluate the quality of their own work, (2) see if this level of accuracy changes when students evaluate a second year essay, having evaluated a similar piece of work in the first year, (3) Investigate whether there is any significant variation in any of the observed changes and (4) identify any factors that might explain any of the observed variation. The data is generated from one cohort of students who were studying for an economics degree at a UK university. The self-evaluation exercise was introduced on two out-of-class essay assessments – one in the first year and one in the second year. Statistical analysis revealed that, on average, the students were significantly more accurate at self-evaluating the quality of their work in the second year than they had been in the first year. However there was considerable variation in this improvement. Those students who demonstrated the greatest improvement were firstly those who were awarded higher marks by the tutor for their second year essay and secondly, those who had been the least accurate at judging the quality of their first year essay. Other student characteristics such as different measures of student ability and gender had no significant impact on the changes in accuracy. However, there is no clear picture about what exactly is driving the improvement.