Are students good judges of their assessment performance?

This paper examines how students' assessments of their written assignments on two professional programmes at a Higher Education Institution (HEI) compare with the marks awarded by their tutors. Students were asked in individual semi-structured interviews to state the score that they thought they would achieve on an assessed essay and justify their decision using the marking grid. The score predicted by the student was then compared with the actual score awarded. Through reference to relevant literature, explanations were sought to explain why these different groups varied in their accuracy in predicting their scores. It was concluded that experienced participants in terms of both employment and academic experience were more confident and therefore less likely to underestimate their abilities. Also, a clear understanding of the assessment grid lexicon helped participants to compare their work with the assessment criteria (author abstract)