Research Designs and Methodologies of Studies in Student Self-Assessment: A Content Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the content of 33 empirical studies related to student self-assessment in primary and secondary education and have been published over the last decade (2009-2019) in 19 scientific journals classified in Scimago (only articles in journals with peer review system to assure their quality) in order to investigate: a) the research design (experimental, quasi-experimental, non-experimental), b) the research method (mixed method, quantitative method, qualitative method), c) the specific design (pretest-posttest etc.), d) the data collection method (questionnaire, interviews, etc.). According to the main findings most studies use non-experimental design, followed by experimental and quasi-experimental design. With regard to research methods quantitative method is used in all research designs, while qualitative and mixed method are used to a lesser degree and only in experimental and non-experimental design. Regarding the specific design, most experimental and quasi- experimental studies adopt a "pretest-posttest" design, while non-experimental studies follow mainly descriptive design. Finally, concerning the data collection methods, questionnaire is the most common method for all research designs, as opposed to other methods, such as interview or the combination of questionnaire and interview.  Therefore, there is a need to investigate the issue of student self-assessment using experimental or quasi-experimental research design where the mixed methodological approach will be adopted and data collection will be carried out using various research tools such as the interview and the questionnaire in order to triangulate the results.