Feminist Self-Evaluation

In my first course that I was ever a TA for, I was contacted by a student just before the final assignment was due. She expressed that she was worried about her assignment, and she booked me for office hours. This student had been to office hours more than any other, which wasn’t unusual for a high achieving, passionate person like her. She was always worried that she hadn’t done enough or that she hadn’t understood the assignment. Of course, she had always done everything wonderfully.

This time, she confessed that it was the self-evaluation that she was concerned about. She recognized that she had the tendency to rate herself quite low on self-evaluations, despite usually getting high grades. In fact, the self-evaluation had cost her a letter grade in the past.

When students are asked at the end of an assignment to assess themselves, they’re often asked to rate how well they thought they did. This dynamic fails to acknowledge that students are effected by gendered sociocultural factors, and doubt in their own capabilities. It’s well known that women tend to underestimate their proficiency in tasks, and that people with existing performance anxieties are similarly likely to think they aren’t doing enough, despite doing the most.

The purported intent of self-evaluation is for the student to reflect on the work they’ve done, and to give teachers insight into the students’ performance. But in reality, we are simply asking students to determine whether they’ve sufficiently exerted themselves for the assignment. The only learning they could receive from this is ‘try harder next time’. After my student pointed out that most students she knew who worked hard in class dreaded self-evals, and that the others saw it as an opportunity to boost their grade.

I collaborated with my student and asked the class to provide their own input to create a new self-evaluation, that focused on reflecting on what the student learned, and for the student to point out places where I could have prepared them better for the assignment. Rather than ranking themselves, students were able to report on what they actually learned, and identify ways that future cohorts could learn better in the future.

Below is an example of the new evaluation tool I now use in classes.

The intention is not for you to grade your own work, but to reflect on its strengths and weaknesses. The grades for this section will be earned based on the thoughtfulness and
evidence for your reflection, not on how positive it sounds.

This form is NOT a grading form.

You must submit a self-reflection form that answers the following questions:
1. What went well on this project? What are you most proud of?
2. What are some things you learned or practiced while completing this project that could
be useful in the future?
3. What were some challenges you encountered while completing this project? What are
some things that could have gone better? What contributed to that?
4. What are some things that you would change about the project? What would make this
project more valuable to you?