Role of Rubric-Referenced Self-Assessment in Learning to Write

The authors examined the impact of self-assessment on 7th- and 8th-grade students' written essays. Students wrote 2 essays: historical fiction essay and response to literature essay. All students received instructional rubrics that articulated the criteria and gradations of quality for the given essay. Students in the treatment group participated in 2 formal self-assessment lessons, during which they used the rubric to assess the quality of their drafts. Authors used multiple linear regression to examine the relationship between essay scores, treatment, and a set of control predictors. The results from the historical fiction essay suggested a positive relationship between the treatment and girls' scores, but no statistically significant relationship between the treatment and boys' scores. The results from the response to literature essay showed no effect of treatment for either boys or girls. The results are explained in terms of the insufficiency of the intervention, as well as the possible effects of rubrics, school conditions, and gender differences in response to self-generated feedback.