Do accounting students believe in self-assessment?

Abstract

In education, formal assessment focuses on summative assessment with the objective of allocating grades, limiting learning by students. Formative assessment, in the form of self-assessment, has been proposed as beneficial to student learning in various fields. This study explores the perceptions of accounting students of the self-assessment process after exposure to the process on three occasions in a facilitated environment created by their lecturers. The students’ perceptions on self-assessment were collected via a structured survey. It was found that most students did not self-assess unless encouraged to do so. However, once they were exposed to self-assessment in an environment supportive to such assessment, students were positive about the process. After the facilitated process, they believed that self-assessment would improve their overall academic performance and indicated that they would apply self-assessment in future. This research provides insight into accounting students’ perceptions of self-assessment in learning, demonstrating the importance of investigating the benefits from a student perspective.