The effect of self-assessment on high school students' English writing achievement and motivation

Assessment has always been a crucial component of education; however, the methods and perspectives towards education have changed throughout the years in regard with different educational philosophies. In recent years, alternative assessment methods to assess the whole learning process have gained popularity among educators and teachers. Nonetheless, one of these formative assessment alternatives, self-assessment, is relatively new introduced to the classrooms in practice. Hence, the purpose of the present study to investigate the effects of self-assessment implementation on ninth grade students' writing competence and motivation. The study was conducted in a private high school with 11 ninth grade students at A2 level according to the placement test applied at the beginning of 2022-2023 academic year. The study lasted eight weeks in which the students were introduced to self-assessment method and trained on how to implement it. After the introduction and training phase, the students completed an English writing motivation questionnaire and a pre-test writing task, and then they graded their pre-writing task by utilizing the rubric that was explained in detail. During the study process, the students completed 14 writing tasks, including pre and post-test writing tasks, and assessed their own writing works with the simplified rubric. Meanwhile, the researcher also graded the students' writing tasks with the same rubric as the students. Before the completion of the study, the students took the same motivation questionnaire and writing task that they completed at the beginning of the study. The study was designed as quasi experimental study and obtained quantitative data from questionnaire and writing scores, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews conducted with volunteer participants. In line with the research questions, the quantitative data obtained from pre and post writing tasks' scores revealed that self-assessment increased the participants' self-awareness and writing scores. On the other hand, in the light of motivation questionnaire results, the self-assessment implementation has not led to a significant difference in the students' English writing motivation although the participants stated in the semi-structured interview that they found self-assessment useful and effective to improve their writing skill. Keywords: self-assessment, writing achievement, English writing motivation