Involved and autonomy-supportive teachers make reflective students: Linking need-supportive teacher practices to student self-assessment practices

Student self-assessment practices are central to involving students in meaningful assessment-as-learning. While personal and psychological factors are known antecedents, little is known about proximal social contexts (e.g., teacher practices) as predictors of student self-assessment. This chapter presents the findings from a cross-sectional study that aimed to test the association between perceived teacher practices and students' self-assessment practices. Using data from 796 secondary school students, we used regression analyses to examine the link between three types of teaching practices (i.e., involved, structured, and autonomy-supportive) and student's four self-assessment actions (i.e., seeking external feedback by monitoring, seeking external feedback by inquiry, seeking internal feedback, and self-reflection). Results showed that involved teaching predicted self-assessment practices with small to medium effect sizes. Involved and autonomy-supportive teaching practices had medium effect sizes to self-reflection and seeking external feedback by monitoring, respectively, while structured teaching did not. These findings highlight the importance of teacher involvement and autonomy-support in promoting students' self-assessment.