Self-assessment of Young Learners in the Experimental English Program in Armenia

Abstract

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study is to examine the accuracy of young learner’s self-assessment grades, as well as to find whether self-assessment practice has an impact on learner’s achievement. The research was conducted at the Experimental English Classes program. Two groups were selected to participate in the study: the treatment group, which received a self-assessment treatment in form of checklists with “I Can” statements, and the control group, which only attended the regular classes and did not receive any additional treatment. This was a mixed method study, which comprised quantitative and qualitative data. The data were obtained through self-assessment checklists, pre-test and the post-test, and an interview with the teacher teaching to the two groups. The interview data were analyzed qualitatively and the data collected through checklists, pre-test and post-test were analyzed using inferential and descriptive statistics in SPSS. The results of the study reveal that the self-assessment grades of the learners significantly correlated with teacher grades, which indicates that the learner’s self-assessment is an accurate indicator of their learning. Despite the fact that the teacher interview results and researcher observations indicate better and more active performance in the treatment group, the results of the statistical analysis don’t show any evidence about the positive impact of self-assessment practice on students’ achievement.