KWL, A POSSIBLE MODEL TO CONNECT SELFASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK: THE STUDENTS’ VIEW

Assessment in higher education can have two functions: providing credentials or improving learning (Boud et al., 1999). As far as the latter purpose is concerned, self-assessment is seen as one of the key elements of formative assessment since its use enhances learning and achievement (Harris & Brown, 2013). Despite of this, Panadero and colleagues (2014) affirmed that “the Spanish higher education context does not have clear guidelines about what type of assessment should be implemented” (p. 371), so that Spanish university students are evaluated through traditional approaches, mostly exams and written work (Ion & Cano, 2011). Instead, using participative assessment strategies such as self-assessment improves students’ understanding of feedback (Sadler, 2010), an important factor that helps students to monitor their work as well as to regulate their learning (Nicol, 2010). Self-regulation of learning requires the exercise of meta-cognitive functioning where students monitor and evaluate their performances and generate feedback (Zimmerman, 2008). Using a mixed method, the present study explores how university students report making use of self-assessment and feedback. The subjects are 309 students enrolled in both Philosophy and Educational Sciences, at the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid. Starting from their opinions, the research has experimented the use of a metacognitive model, the Know-Want-Learn method, originally designed by Ogle in 1986, to verify if it could be useful for students to better self-assess themselves, using feedback and more active participation. Although the sample is not representative of the higher education population, it is large enough to allow reasonable reflections.