Teachers’ beliefs of pre-service German teachers about student self-assessment

Abstract

The aim of the research is to investigate beliefs of Austrian and Czech preservice teachers of German about student self-assessment (SSA). In the first part of the paper important theoretical and empirical findings on and principles of SSA and about teachers’ beliefs are discussed. After the description of the research design the data analysis is presented. Results show that only a minority of trainee teachers participating in this survey have experienced SSA as students themselves and that even fewer have been able to implement SSA as teachers in their classroom. Moreover, it was verified that most of the trainee teachers have theoretical knowledge about student self-assessment. If one looks at the statements of the individual pre-service teachers as a whole and assign them to a growth mindset (=self-assessment skills can be learned with suitable training) or a fixed mindset (=self-assessment skills are only mastered by certain particularly reflective students), it is evident that although 43.8% cannot be classified and 9.4% make statements that can be assigned to both mindsets, 28.1% of the prospective teachers can be assigned to a growth mindset and 18.8% to a fixed mindset. Didactically, it would be desirable if it were clearly accentuated that self-assessment skills can be learned through suitable didactic training.

Keywords

• student self-assessment
• teachers' beliefs
• self-regulated learning
• German as a second language
• German as a foreign language