The importance of student self-assessment and its contribution to learning in teacher education is well documented in the research literature. However, we still need to better understand when and why self-assessment actually works. This study examines preservice teachers' perception of self-assessment prior to and following experiencing self-assessment. The study included 135 students studying at two education colleges in Israel. The students attended courses with differing evaluation approaches. The findings show that the experience with self-assessment in the courses with formative evaluation or integrative evaluation encourages the students' positive perception of self-assessment, in contrast to summative evaluation courses. The study expands our understanding of the importance of student involvement in the evaluation processes, as well as the role of the feedback in the process. These two factors had the greatest impact on the students' perceptions, as well as on the accuracy of their self-grading.