ERIC Number: EJ1437817
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0950-0782
EISSN: EISSN-1747-7581
Self-Assessment Criteria as Projected Realities: A Social Cognitive Study on Student Experience in Postgraduate Thesis Writing
While research on postgraduate thesis writing has investigated how students cope with institutional assessment criteria, this study explores how students form their own criteria for self-assessment through the writing process, aiming to account for the development of their independent thinking in academic socialisation. Based on in-depth interviews with 10 Chinese master's students, the study found that their self-assessment criteria not only represented solutions to problems identified by their supervisors and examiners, but also embodied aims established by students themselves. Those criteria were not fixed textual properties of a 'good' thesis, but were dynamic representations of textual and social realities constituting students' lifeworlds. Viewed from this perspective, self-assessment is a situated process whereby students re-experience and re-interpret multiple sets of realities juxtaposed against their writing. Pedagogically, the study implies that postgraduate thesis supervision could facilitate the expansion of students' self-assessment criteria to develop their capacity for making independent judgements.
Descriptors: Graduate Students, Masters Theses, Writing (Composition), Self Evaluation (Individuals), Evaluation Criteria, Text Structure, Writing Processes, Supervision, Personal Autonomy, Decision Making, Masters Programs, Socialization, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A