Towards an Interaction Theory of Student Self-Assessment: Mapping the Cognitive and Affective, Metacognitive, and Emotional Dimensions via Multimodal Data

Abstract

Facilitating student self-assessment across education systems is imperative for enhancing learning for all students, yet there is currently no theoretical framework that articulates how students’ actions, cognition and affect, metacognition, and emotions interact within the self-assessment process—a critical barrier to understanding the phenomenon of self-assessment and how it can be supported effectively in classrooms. Building on scholarship which has mapped the self-assessment process as a series of actions and practices, the purpose of this dissertation was to examine and provide initial empirical evidence of the cognitive and affective, metacognitive, and emotional dimensions of the student self-assessment process—and how these interact with each other and students’ actions. This dissertation is predicated on multimodal data (i.e., eye tracking, think-alouds) collected while 25 university students engaged in a self-assessment activity. The first study in this multiple manuscript dissertation focused on the cognitive and affective dimension, drawing on joint display integration of eye tracking and think-aloud data to contribute an understanding of the unique cognitive and affective processes students engage in when using resources that are commonly used to facilitate student self-assessment (i.e., rubrics, exemplars, their work). The second study focused on the metacognitive dimension of student self-assessment via inductive analysis of think aloud data, elucidating the metacognitive experiences and metacognitive skills whereby students monitor and control their self-assessment processes. The third study, an investigation of the emotional dimension of student self-assessment, leveraged think-aloud and questionnaire data to contribute initial empirical evidence of the types and intensities of emotions that emerge during self-assessment. State-transition analysis offered insight into how certain types of emotions may be likely to provoke certain self-assessment actions. The dissertation concludes with the advancement of a novel interaction theory of student self-assessment. This interaction theory advances the first theoretical framework of the student self-assessment process that articulates the interrelations between students’ self-assessment actions, cognitive and affective processes, metacognition, and emotions, generating implications for future research and education, providing an initial comprehensive framework of the phenomenon of student self-assessment to guide research and practice.