Do students know what they know? Exploring the accuracy of students’ self-assessments

We have conducted an investigation into how well students in introductory science classes (both physics and chemistry) are able to predict which questions they will or will not be able to answer correctly on an upcoming assessment. An examination of the data at the level of students’ overall scores reveals results consistent with the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which low-performing students tend to overestimate their abilities, while high-performing students estimate their abilities more accurately. Similar results have been widely reported in the science education literature. Breaking results out by students’ responses to individual questions, however, reveals that students of all ability levels have difficulty distinguishing questions which they are able to answer correctly from those that they are not able to answer correctly. These results have implications for the future study and reporting of students’ metacognitive abilities.

Figure 1

A pair of questions from the physics KS, and the corresponding questions from the physics final exam.

Figure 2

Scatterplot of students’ KS-matched scores versus their actual scores on the matched assessment items for Physics 211.

Figure 3

Average KS-matched scores and actual scores on the matched assessment items broken out by student groupings based on the overall score on the final exam for Physics 211.

Figure 4

Average fraction of KS questions to which students had responded A or B or C which they then went on to answer correctly, broken out by student groupings based on overall final exam score for Physics 211. Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval of the mean.

Figure 5

Average KS-matched scores and actual scores on the matched assessment items broken out by student groupings based on the overall score on the final exam for Chemistry 110.

Figure 6

Average fraction of KS questions to which students had responded A or B or C which they then went on to answer correctly, broken out by student groupings based on overall final exam score for Chemistry 110. Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval of the mean.