| The last 30 years have seen a growth of interest in non-traditional forms of educational assessment, influenced by trends of humanistic pedagogy, self-directed learning, and the movement towards more 'student-centered' classrooms. Self-assessment has been an especially popular topic within a growing European movement promoting the development of autonomous learning programs in all fields of higher education. In foreign language pedagogy, there have been numerous investigations into the feasibility of using self-assessment as a measure of language proficiency, and as a placement instrument.;Results from research on self-assessment in other fields of education are acknowledged to be generally inconclusive, and indicate that several elements may influence students' self-evaluations, including the degree to which students are involved in setting assessment criteria, learners' experience with a particular subject-matter, self-esteem, and other psychological factors. Foreign language research on self-assessment to date has focused mainly on comparisons between self-assessment questionnaires and other 'objective' tests, to establish the concurrent validity of various self-assessment instruments, and has only begun to address the issue of what other factors may affect students' self-assessments.;This dissertation contributes to the discussion about the potential usefulness of self-assessment in two important ways: First, it provides a critical review and analysis of research on self-assessment in foreign language learning, situating it in the spectrum of higher education research. Second, through an interpretative analysis of introspective 'think-aloud' protocols, collected while French learners with varying levels of ability were completing an experimental self-assessment instrument, six key factors are identified which influence individuals' orientation to the self-assessment task. These are: question interpretation, language learning background and experience, strategies for completing a questionnaire, reference points, self-esteem, and level of commitment to one's answers.;Results of the present study indicate that because self-assessment may be influenced by these various factors, it seems unreasonable to employ self-assessment as a measurement tool in any situation which entails a comparison of students' abilities. It may, however, be a useful formative learning device, that is, one used throughout the course of a learning program, for feedback to both learners and teachers about the learners' progress, strengths, and weaknesses. |
