REPUBLIC OF TURKEY

SULEYMAN DEMIREL UNIVERSITY

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES EDUCATION

THE EFFECT OF SELF-ASSESSMENT ON HIGH SCHOOL

STUDENTS’ ENGLISH WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AND MOTIVATION

Melike ÖZELCİ

Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kağan BÜYÜKKARCI

MASTER’S THESIS
ISPARTA, 2024

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© 2024 by Melike ÖZELCİ. All rights reserved.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................................... i
ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................... iv
ÖZET ............................................................................................................................... vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. ix
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ x
LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................... xii
OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS.................................................................................. xiii
1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1
1.1. Introduction................................................................................................................ 1
1.2. Statement of the Problem........................................................................................... 1
1.3. Purpose of the Study .................................................................................................. 2
1.4. Significance of the Study ........................................................................................... 3
1.5. Assumptions............................................................................................................... 3
2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND RELATED STUDIES................................... 4
2.1. Definition of Assessment ........................................................................................... 4
2.2. Purposes of Assessment ............................................................................................. 4
2.3. Summative Assessment ............................................................................................. 6
2.4. Formative Assessment ............................................................................................... 6
2.4.1. Self-assessment ....................................................................................................... 7
2.4.2. Peer assessment..................................................................................................... 10
2.5. Writing Assessment ................................................................................................. 11
2.5.1. Self-assessment in writing .................................................................................... 12
2.6. Concerns about Self-assessment .............................................................................. 14
2.7. Self-assessment Studies in Turkey .......................................................................... 15
2.8. Self-assessment Studies around the World .............................................................. 16
2.9. Writing Motivation .................................................................................................. 19
3. METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................... 21
3.1. Introduction.............................................................................................................. 21
3.2. Research Design ...................................................................................................... 21
3.3. Participants............................................................................................................... 22
3.4. Setting ...................................................................................................................... 23

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3.5. Data Collection Tools .............................................................................................. 23
3.5.1. Motivation questionnaire ...................................................................................... 24
3.5.2. Scores of pre-test and post-test tasks .................................................................... 24
3.5.3. Semi-structured interviews ................................................................................... 25
3.6. Data Collection Procedure ....................................................................................... 26
3.7. Data Analysis ........................................................................................................... 28
3.7.1. Quantitative data ................................................................................................... 29
3.7.2. Qualitative data ..................................................................................................... 29
4. FINDINGS .................................................................................................................. 31
4.1. Introduction.............................................................................................................. 31
4.2. Quantitative Data Analysis ...................................................................................... 31
4.2.1. Research question 1 ............................................................................................. 31
4.2.2. Research question 2 .............................................................................................. 35
4.3. Qualitative Data Analysis ........................................................................................ 36
4.3.1. Research question 3 .............................................................................................. 37
5. DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................. 41
5.1. Discussion of the Findings for the Research Question1 .......................................... 41
5.2. Discussion of the Findings for the Research Question 2 ......................................... 42
5.3. Discussion of the Findings for the Research Question 3 ......................................... 43
6. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 46
6.1. Conclusion of the Study........................................................................................... 46
6.2. Limitations ............................................................................................................... 47
6.3. Suggestions for Further Studies .............................................................................. 48
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 50
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................ 59
Appendix A. Ethics Committee Approval 1 ................................................................... 60
Appendix B. Ethics Committee Approval 2 ................................................................... 61
Appendix C. Parent’s Consent Letter ............................................................................. 62
Appendix D. Writing Motivation Questionnaire ............................................................ 63
Appendix E. Pre and Post Writing Task ......................................................................... 64
Appendix F. Self-assessment Rubric .............................................................................. 65
Appendix G. Semi-structured Interview Questions ........................................................ 66
Appendix H. Some Examples of the Students’ Pre-Writing Task .................................. 67
Appendix I. Some Examples of the Students’ Post Writing Task .................................. 69

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Appendix J. Some Examples of the Students’ Writing Motivation Questionnaire (Before
the study)......................................................................................................................... 71
Appendix K. Some Examples of the Students’ Writing Motivation Questionnaire (After
the Study). ....................................................................................................................... 73
Appendix L. Some Examples of the Students’ Writing Tasks and Related Self-
assessment ....................................................................................................................... 75
Appendix M. Some examples of the Students’ Interviews............................................. 79
Appendix N. Scores of the Self-assessed and Teacher Assessed Tasks ......................... 82
CURRICULUM VITAE ................................................................................................. 83

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 ABSTRACT

THE EFFECT OF SELF-ASSESSMENT ON HIGH SCHOOL

STUDENTS’ ENGLISH WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AND MOTIVATION

Melike ÖZELCİ

Master’s Thesis, Süleyman Demirel University, Graduate School of Educational

Sciences, Department of Foreign Language Education
Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kağan BÜYÜKKARCI
2024, 86 pages

Assessment has always been a crucial component of education; however, the methods
and perspectives towards education have changed throughout the years in regard with
different educational philosophies. In recent years, alternative assessment methods to
assess the whole learning process have gained popularity among educators and teachers.
Nonetheless, one of these formative assessment alternatives, self-assessment, is relatively
new introduced to the classrooms in practice. Hence, the purpose of the present study to
investigate the effects of self-assessment implementation on ninth grade students’ writing
competence and motivation. The study was conducted in a private high school with 11
ninth grade students at A2 level according to the placement test applied at the beginning
of 2022-2023 academic year. The study lasted eight weeks in which the students were
introduced to self-assessment method and trained on how to implement it. After the
introduction and training phase, the students completed an English writing motivation
questionnaire and a pre-test writing task, and then they graded their pre-writing task by
utilizing the rubric that was explained in detail. During the study process, the students
completed 14 writing tasks, including pre and post-test writing tasks, and assessed their
own writing works with the simplified rubric. Meanwhile, the researcher also graded the
students’ writing tasks with the same rubric as the students. Before the completion of the
study, the students took the same motivation questionnaire and writing task that they
completed at the beginning of the study. The study was designed as quasi experimental

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study and obtained quantitative data from questionnaire and writing scores, qualitative
data from semi-structured interviews conducted with volunteer participants.
In line with the research questions, the quantitative data obtained from pre and post
writing tasks’ scores revealed that self-assessment increased the participants’ self-
awareness and writing scores. On the other hand, in the light of motivation questionnaire
results, the self-assessment implementation has not led to a significant difference in the
students’ English writing motivation although the participants stated in the semi-
structured interview that they found self-assessment useful and effective to improve their
writing skill.

Keywords: self-assessment, writing achievement, English writing motivation

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 ÖZET

ÖZ DEĞERLENDİRMENİN LİSE ÖĞRENCİLERİNİN İNGİLİZCE YAZMA

BAŞARISINA VE MOTİVASYONUNA ETKİSİ

Melike ÖZELCİ

Yüksek Lisans Tezi, Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü,

Yabancı Diller Eğitimi Anabilim Dalı
Danışman: Doç. Dr. Kağan BÜYÜKKARCI
2024, 86 sayfa

Değerlendirme her zaman eğitimin önemli bir bileşeni olmuştur, fakat eğitime karşı bakış
açıları ve metotlar yıllar içerisinde farklı eğitim felsefelerine göre değişiklik göstermiştir.
Son yıllarda, tüm süreci değerlendirmek için kullanılan alternatif değerlendirme metotları
eğitimciler ve öğretmenler arasında popülerlik kazandı. Fakat bu alternatif biçimlendirici
yöntemlerinden biri olan öz değerlendirme, diğerlerine kıyasla sınıf pratiklerinde yerini
yeni aldı. Bu sebeple, bu çalışma öz değerlendirmenin dokuzuncu sınıf öğrencilerinin
yazı yazma yeterliliklerine ve motivasyonlarına etkisi araştırmak için yapıldı. Çalışma,
özel bir lisede dokuzuncu sınıf kademesinde 2022-2023 akademik yılının başında
uygulanan düzey belirleme sınavına göre A2 seviyesindeki sınıfta yer alan on bir öğrenci
ile gerçekleştirildi. Sekiz hafta süren bu çalışmada öğrencilere öncelikle öz değerlendirme
tanıtıldı ve öğrencilere öz değerlendirmenin nasıl yapılacağına dair eğitim verildi. İkinci
adım olarak öğrenciler İngilizce yazı yazma motivasyon ölçeğini ve ön test olarak
kullanılacak yazma çalışmasını tamamladılar ve sonrasında kendilerine detaylı bir şekilde
anlatılan değerlendirme kriterlerini kullanarak kendi yazı çalışmalarına puan verdiler. Bu
çalışma boyunca, katılımcılar ön test ve son test olarak kullanılan çalışmalar dahil olmak
üzere on dört tane yazı çalışmasını tamamlayıp aynı basitleştirilmiş değerlendirme
kriterlerine göre puanladılar. Aynı zamanda, araştırmacı da öğrenciler ile aynı
değerlendirme kriterlerini kullanarak öğrencilerin yazı çalışmalarını değerlendirip
puanladı. Araştırma tamamlamadan önce ise sekizinci haftada öğrencilere ilk hafta
verilen motivasyon ölçeği ve ön test olarak kullanılan yazı çalışması tekrar verildi ve

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öğrencilerin kendini değerlendirmeleri istendi. Yarı deneysel yöntem ile yapılan bu
çalışmada motivasyon ölçeği ve yazı puanlarından gelen nicel verilerin yanı sıra gönüllü
öğrencilerle yapılan yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formundan elde edilen nitel veriler de
kullanılmıştır.
Araştırma soruları doğrultusunda, ön ve son test yazı çalışma puanlarının kıyaslanmasıyla
elde edilen sonuçlar öz değerlendirmenin katılımcıların öz farkındalığını ve yazıları için
aldıkları puanları arttırdığını ortaya çıkarmıştır. Diğer taraftan, yarı yapılandırılmış
görüşme formunda öğrenciler öz değerlendirmeyi yararlı ve yazma becerilerini geliştirme
noktasında etkili bulmalarına rağmen; motivasyon ölçeğinden elde edilen veriler öz
değerlendirmenin öğrencilerin İngilizce yazma motivasyonu üzerinde anlamlı bir
değişikliğe yol açmadığı ortaya çıkarmıştır.

Anahtar kelimeler: öz değerlendirme, yazma başarısı, İngilizce yazma motivasyonu

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 To my one and only, Masal…

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my advisor Assoc. Prof.
Dr. Kağan BÜYÜKKARCI whose support, guidance, and patience has been invaluable
throughout my study. His expertise, feedback and valuable thoughts have always been
significant in my master thesis process.

I owe thanks to my students who volunteered to participate in my study and for their
contribution to the research.

I would like to extend my thanks to all my family who has always been very supportive
in this long process. I owe special thanks to my spouse, Murat ÖZELCİ, who disburdens
the life responsibilities on my shoulders when I struggle to move on. I am grateful to my
mother, Ayten ÇETİNEL, whose encouragement has been a constant source of
achievement. Her presence has always been a valuable gift which I cannot express my
gratitude for. Without their support, I would not have been able to survive in this
challenging time.

The last but not least, I am in deep gratitude for my daughter, Masal ÖZELCİ, for every
piece that she has brought to our lives. My journey would have been dull without the joy
that brightens our lives.

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 LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Distribution of the participants’ gender ............................................................ 23

Table 2. Motivation questionnaire factors Cronbach Alpha Values............................... 24
Table 3. The training and data collection weeks with writing subjects………………...27
Table 4. Descriptive analysis of pre and post-writing tests scored by the researcher.....32
Table 5. Wilcoxon signed ranks test analysis of pre and post writing tests scored by the
researcher……………………………………………………………………………….32
Table 6. Descriptive analysis of pre and post writing tests scored by the participants...33
Table 7. Wilcoxon signed ranks test analysis of pre and post writing tests scored by the
participants……………………………………………………………………………...33
Table 8. Descriptive analysis of mean scores of the teacher and self-assessment per fourteen
writing tasks……………………………………………………………………………..34
Table 9. Descriptive analysis of pre and post questionnaire scores……………...…….35
Table 10. Wilcoxon test analysis of pre and post questionnaire scores…………...…...35
Table 11. Main themes and frequency of codes assigned to students’ semi-structured
interview …………………………………………………………...…………………..36

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 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Formative and summative assessment……………………………………….6

Figure 2. Main stages in conducting and evaluating a self-assessment………………...9
Figure 3. Students’ self-assessment cycle……………………………………………...10
Figure 4. A summary of the three-step pedagogy……………………………….……..14
Figure 5. Comparison of mean scores of the teacher and self-assessment per fourteen
writing tasks………..…………………………………….…………………………….34

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 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CEFR Common European Framework

EFL English as a Foreign Language
ELT English Language Teaching
N Sample Size
SPSS version 29 Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 29

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 OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS

Assessment: Assessment is a process of gathering, measuring, evaluating, and

interpreting of data obtained from a learner regarding their language proficiency, skills,
and performance.
Summative Assessment: Summative assessment aims to measure or summarize what a
student has learnt, and generally occurs at the end of a course or a unit. (Brown, 2004)
Formative Assessment: Formative assessment evaluates students in the process of
“forming” their competence and skills with the goal of helping them to continue their
development process. (Brown, 2004)
Self-assessment: Self-assessment is an alternative formative assessment method for
students to evaluate and give feedback on their own work.
Peer-assessment: Peer-assessment is a method that is used in group or class settings
where students assess and provide feedback to their peers on a work, performance, or a
task.
Rubric: Rubric is a set of criteria for grading assignments.
Scaffolding: Scaffolding is assistance supplied by teachers and others in supporting
learner’s development to get to next stage or level. (Vygotsky, 1978)

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Introduction

The study aims to investigate the effect of self-assessment on ninth grade pre-intermediate
level students’ writing competence and motivation. In this regard, this chapter explains
the purpose and significance of the study in addition to the reasons why this study was
carried out. Lastly, it touches upon the assumptions in the general frames of the study.

1.2. Statement of the Problem

Student assessment is one of the most crucial components of language progress. In the
changing world, everything changes and evolves including the trends and perspectives in
foreign language education. In the light of this change, alternative assessment methods,
namely self-assessment, peer assessment, portfolio, diary, presentation, have risen in
foreign language education. Even though these assessment methods have not had a long
history in education, their usage and effectiveness has been increasing at a steady speed.

Writing is one of the essential language skills in foreign language, but because of the
traditional methods to teach it, participants do not prefer to participate in writing courses
(Heidarian, 2016). Another reason behind students’ demotivation for writing is students’
lack of writing skill competence in their mother tongue. Hence, writing can be even scary
in a second language (Amold & Anderson, 2016). Writing is also considered as the most
difficult language skill to develop (Huang & Zhang, 2020; Zhang, 2021) “because it is
commonly understood as the most demanding language skill among the language skills
such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing”. (Cheng & Zhang, 2022, p.1)

Apart from being one of the foreign language essentials, writing competence is a broader
term which consists of three basic elements: skills, knowledge, and attribute
(Ratminingsih et. al., 2018). To have writing competence, learner needs to have skill to
produce; knowledge to have theoretical information; and attributes to think and do what
is learnt (Ratminingsih et. al., 2018). Therefore, the students need to reflect all these three
elements on their writing works to achieve writing competence. Finally, language learners

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seek for fun and diversity in the classes, and writing tasks can make them feel bored and
stressed (Serra, 2014).

However, involvement of self-assessment in writing courses with encouragement could

alter students’ attitudes towards writing. When they consider it as if they have the role of
teacher for their own works, they could change their attitude towards writing lessons.
When self-assessment is decided to be used, students need to be scaffolded by teachers.
Self-assessment is conducted as a part of formative assessment which emphasises the
improvement process of a learner rather than the final grade. Students have a chance to
observe their own strengths and weakness for further language development. Students
monitor their own progress and areas that require development thanks to self-assessment.
Hence, self-assessment is a useful tool for this purpose. However, at that point another
question rises, which is if the subject and the subskill is convenient to be able to use
alternative assessment methods. Writing can be counted as a suitable skill for alternative
formative assessments including self-assessment since it is a skill which takes quite
amount of time to develop and learners need frequent feedback during the process.

1.3. Purpose of the Study

This study aims to find out the impact of the self-assessment on ninth-grade students’
performance in English writing. Furthermore, the investigation also intends to reveal the
relation between self-assessment and students’ motivation towards English writing tasks.
The study is planned to give a significant insight about self-assessment’s potentials.

The research questions below have been analysed in the present study.
1. Do ninth-grade students’ writing skills improve after self-assessment
implementation?
2. Does self-assessment increase students’ motivation towards English writing?
3. What are the ninth-grade students’ perceptions about self-assessment
implementation?

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1.4. Significance of the Study

The number of the studies conducted to examine the effectiveness of self-assessment on

students’ writing skill is very limited. Although it is known that there are some
experimental studies carried out in Turkey to investigate the effect of self-assessment on
writing skill, there have been no studies made with ninth grade students from a private
high school in Turkey. Hence, this situation hinders to make comparison of the results of
the similar studies in the literature. The current study is also significant as it uses an
alternative assessment method in English writing classes. Since assessment of language
education is mostly based on summative assessments such as multiple-choice exams or
large-scale exams in Turkey, new assessment methods such as self-assessment, peer-
assessment, journal, portfolio, etc ought to be tried and benefitted. Since these alternative
assessments are formative type of assessment, their contribution to students long-term
permanent learning can be significant. Research in this area can yield a wide range of
implications for education, personal development, and various fields, eventually
contributing to our understanding of how self-assessment can be used effectively to
improve English writing. Therefore, the present study aims to design a quasi-
experimental study to observe effectiveness of self-assessment on students’ writing skill
and how their motivation is affected.

1.5. Assumptions

In the experimental study phase of the study, it has been assumed that the students are
capable of accurately assessing their own knowledge and performance and in case of any
hesitation, they seek for teacher’s assistance. Another assumption regarding the
implementation process of the study, the students have been assumed to have a motivation
to engage in self-assessment. This motivation may stem from a desire for self-
improvement or achieving a goal. It has been also assumed that the students have not been
under the effects of the uncontrollable external factors such as hunger, tiredness, illness,
etc.

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2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND RELATED STUDIES

This chapter provides detailed information about definitions, terms, types of assessment,
self-assessment, English writing skills and attitudes towards writing skill in the light of
studies conducted in this field.

2.1. Definition of Assessment

Assessment is a crucial component of language learning process since it provides learners

and teachers with feedback of the process. It is also defined as the process of gathering,
interpreting, recording, and using information about students’ answers in educational
tasks. (Lambert & Lines, 2000). Since assessment sheds light on students’ strengths and
weaknesses, it gives continuous contributions to plan and design the educational tasks
based on students’ needs. Although how assessment is implemented differs in certain
situations and according to teaching philosophy, it is undeniable to be an organic part of
education. However, it is quite beneficial to distinguish assessment from testing, which
gives only numeric data that provide very rather limited information about continuous
learning process at the end of a course or a term. Testing is solely a way of assessment
which fails to meet the 21st century learners’ educational needs. There are various
methods to assess and interpret students’ language performance at certain intervals
(Coombe, Folse, & Hubley, 2007). It is basically categorized as summative and formative
assessment with several methods under both methods.

2.2. Purposes of Assessment

Assessment has taken on different purposes in education field such as purposes for
teachers, students, parents, and education authorities. One of the prominent reasons of
using assessment in foreign language education is to measure the specific content that has
been covered in a course or language programme (Hamp-Lyons, 2016). The results or the
interpretations of the assessment provide teachers with the data to understand what
learners know, understand, and achieve in relation to the learning objectives set at the
beginning of the teaching process. Assessment in language education supplies good
amount of feedback to both teachers and students. It plays a crucial role to adjust teaching
for teachers and students by giving feedback on teaching and learning process

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(Büyükkarcı, 2014). Thus, they can identify the strengths and the weaknesses of the
students that are open to improve and guide students accordingly. Teachers can redesign
the lessons with differentiated teaching methods to enable students to improve their
performance. As teachers have constant information about what students know, teachers
can integrate, transform, and use the information purposefully (Newstead, 2003). As well
as using the obtained data during the teaching process, teachers also use them
meaningfully at the beginning of a course or term thanks to placement or diagnostic tests.
Since they have a deeper insight into language proficiency level, they can organize
learning groups, teaching activities and materials appropriately to be able to meet lesson
objectives (Hyland, 2003).

Assessment is also a rich source of feedback for students who are supposed to meet a
certain set of learning objectives. Informing students about their assessment results and
interpretations sheds light on their own learning experience. Students can identify their
learning needs and the areas that they are struggling at with the teacher assistance.
Therefore, they can take the responsibility of their learning process and concentrate more
on the areas that require improvement, which enables them to be more autonomous in
their own learning experience. Assessment can also motivate students to engage with the
process more and take the studies seriously because knowing that their performance is
assessed drive them to strive for better results (Karafil, 2022).

Assessment can provide meaningful data not only for students and educators but also for
parents who monitor their children learning process meticulously. Parents also benefit
from assessments to intervene the learning process outside school when it is seen as
necessary by teachers (Coombe et al., 2007).

In addition to purposes mentioned above, assessment also serves for curriculum and
education authorities. The data obtained from assessment enable authorities to evaluate
whether the curriculum is effective in meeting its intended objectives. Hence, necessary
curriculum alignments can be done to achieve educational goals and standards.

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2.3. Summative Assessment

Assessment is mostly divided into two categories as summative and formative assessment
according to its purpose and how the procedure is conducted. (Figure 1) Summative
assessment aims to sum up the students’ performances to induce a final judgement about
what the learner grasped (Dunn et al, 2004). It is typically applied at the end of course or
unit of instruction. For this reason, it implies taking stock of how well that learner has
accomplished objectives up to that time, yet it does not necessarily point the way to future
progress (Brown, 2004). Summative assessment differs from the other type of assessment,
formative assessment, as it is more formal and is based on tests (Bloom et. al., 2001).
Some other types of summative assessment tools can be listed as final exams, state tests,
college entrance tests, and term papers (Dixson & Worrell, 2016).

Figure 1. Formative and summative assessment (Gupta, 2021) Retrieved from

[Link]

2.4. Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is evaluating students in the process of “forming” their competence

and skills with the goal of helping them to continue that growth (Brown, 2004). In terms
of theoretical framework of formative assessment, constructivism is mentioned since
learners define knowledge as developmental, they process the obtained knowledge
regarding an objective (Brooks, 1999). With this regard, constructivist practices also

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enhance assessment phase by including learners into the process (Karakaya, 2017).
Formative assessment aims to give feedback on the current situation and have an eye
toward the future progress. At this point, mistakes are valued since they can point the
areas that inhibit future improvement. The main point for teachers is to provide the
students with feedback and make necessary modifications about the lesson content and
how it is covered. Quizzes, portfolios, observation, etc. are good examples of formative
assessment which identify students’ weakness and strengths to create more meaningful
learning experiences According to Reynolds et. al., (2006), formative assessment
constructs and supports meaningful learning during the process. Hence, there is a
considerable difference between summative and formative assessment, in that summative
assessment reports the numeric success whereas formative assessment provides constant
feedback for teachers and students. Although students do care more about final grade as
the result of summative assessment, formative assessment is clearly more beneficial for
the students.

Besides portfolios, observations, quizzes; self-assessment and peer-assessment are both

used in formative assessment procedure. Recently, there is a significant emphasis on the
both self-assessment and peer-assessment in ELT lessons at the universities and English
lessons in schools. More educators around the world do notice the advantages of these
formative assessment practices since it enables a shift from teachers to students, which
suit much better with changed learner profile (Boud, 1995).

2.4.1. Self-assessment

Self-assessment is an alternative formative assessment method for students to evaluate

and give feedback on their own work. The feedback can be given orally or in written
form, and also students need to evaluate their own work by using one certain rubric given
by the teacher. Firstly, they need to be told what self-assessment is, what self-assessment
is not. Before they begin evaluating their work, the purpose of the self-assessment and all
criteria in the rubric are clearly explained by teacher. Rubric is to be clear and
understandable in terms of wording and structure so the only thing that students
concentrate on must be the quality of their work. Finally, they are asked to complete self-
assessment on their own. According to research by Andrade and Valtcheva (2009), there
is a positive correlation between self-assessment and the quality of writing. Ross et al.

7
(1998) also supported this statement by the findings of their research which indicate that
weak writers who were trained in self-assessment outperformed the ones in the control
group. Khodaday and Khodabakhshzade (2012) concluded in his research that regular
implementation of self-assessment has great impact on students’ sense of autonomy in
writing tasks. It was also observed that the students who were in experimental group
completed the following writing tasks more enthusiastically than the ones in the control
group. As students have a concrete and written output to be assessed in the writing lesson,
the impact of self-assessment has been observed in the studies. Little (2005) states the
importance of self-assessment in reflective learning by highlighting three aspects of self-
assessment. Firstly, it enables students to engage in curriculum evaluation. Secondly, self-
assessment serves for a more learner-centred pedagogy to grow autonomous learners.
Lastly, it provides learners with chance to utilize their self-assessment knowledge outside
the classroom.

Self-assessment term was first defined by Albert Bandura in 1977 as a process consisting
of self-observation, self-judgement, and self-evaluative reaction. He phrased the self-
assessment as self-assessment involves observation of behaviour, evaluation of that
behaviour, and a reaction to the evaluation. According to Levine, Bandura’s that
definition not only simply mean measurement of one’s own performance but also
involves an interpretation of the performance (Levine, 1980). Since then, self-assessment
has immensely attracted researchers’ attention and a great number of related studies have
been conducted. As a result of the studies, another definition of self-assessment was made
as “the participation of learners in judging whether or not learner-identified standards
have been met” (Eva & Regehr, 2005, p.46). This definition highlights the importance of
putting the students in the core of learning process and giving responsibility of the
process. This enables students to become self-critical and independent (Lee, 2006).
During the construction of the knowledge, students recognize their own weaknesses and
strengths, and they can take purposeful actions for the goals that they are supposed to
achieve. It entails autonomy for the students in order that they can form the targeted
knowledge. Brown (2004) points out that proficiency of a foreign language depends
primarily on learners’ autonomous ability to take initiative in the classroom. Motivation
and encouragement also increase for autonomous students who actively participate to the
learning process (Jamrus & Razali, 2019). Moreover, monitoring their performance also
increases their self-confidence which is required to foster learning a foreign language.

8
These thoughts are in line with those of Belachew et a. (2015), Bowman (2017), and
Elgadal (2017) since self-assessment seems to promote students’ self-confidence in
writing. Hence, this is highly valuable for EFL context where students frequently feel
nervous especially in practicing using the target language. Dhanarattigannon and
Thienpermpool’s (2022) study also supported this view by revealing that the participants
felt more confident about their writing.

It is also noteworthy to state the importance of preparing students for more meaningful
self-assessment evaluation. In this regard, Brown (2004) suggests the following steps “tell
students purpose of the assessment, define the task(s) clearly, encourage impartial
evaluation of performance or ability, ensure beneficial washback through follow-up
tasks” (p.276). These self-assessment phases are explicitly outlined in Figure 2. Students
are to be clearly informed about philosophy of self-assessment, definition of self-
assessment, and implementation phases to reach a fruitful and fair evaluation..

Figure 2. Main stages in conducting and evaluating a self-assessment

(adapted from Falchikov, 2003, p. 104)

Self-assessment steps have been defined differently by Bruce (2001) under three main
headings. First step is identified as self-monitoring step in which students elaborate on
what they are doing in relation with external standards such as language accuracy,
spelling, organization, punctuation, etc. Self-judgement comes on the second place where
students judge on their achievement and progress regarding the target goal. The last step
is called as learning target and instructional correctives in which students decide on the
following learning objectives to improve incorrect answers, partially correct answers,
misunderstandings, and further enhancement of the language performance.

9
Figure 3. Students’ self-assessment cycle (McMillan & Hearn, 2008, p.42)

In terms of teacher perspectives, self-assessment can also yield positive outcomes. First,
teachers have more motivated and autonomous students in the classroom, which increases
fruitfulness of lesson. Self-assessment also prevents placing teachers in the centre of
language learning process, which leads to more appealing lessons for the students.
Although teachers monitor all phases of self-assessment process and contribute to it as a
facilitator, it still reduces teachers’ workload to some extent (Rushton et al., 1993). Brown
and Harris (2013) also consented that it is of essential importance for EFL teachers to be
a supportive facilitator and counsellor in the self-assessment process to maximize the
benefits of the assessment method.

2.4.2. Peer-assessment

Peer-assessment can be defined as a method that is used in group or class settings where
students assess and provide feedback to their peers on a work, performance, or a task. It
is another formative assessment method which highly attracts educators’ attention and
foster learning quality in classrooms. Topping (2009) defined peer-assessment as the
organization of evaluating and determining the level, value, or quality of the work of other
students of equal status. It also enhances critical thinking, communicative and
collaborative skills of students (Nilson, 2003).

10
The way, the place, the time it is implemented differs. It can be in written form, or it can
be done orally (Topping, 2009; 2018). Peer-assessment can be used for different works
such as presentation, essay, portfolio, performance, etc. Teacher can ask students to apply
it in pairs or groups. Finally, it can be conducted both inside and outside the classroom,
hence it can be interpreted that students can adopt this skill into the real life. (Topping,
2009)

It can be a crucial learning source since students learn from each other. Bandura (1971)
phrased a term about peer-assessment known as “reinforcement”. Students maintain the
positive responses that they observe in their peers and cross out the negative ones. Hence,
they can adopt new or better techniques according to feedback. In this sense, not only
feedback giver, assessor, but also feedback receiver has gains. They both scaffold and
learn from each other. Teachers’ gains also cannot be ignored since they have less
workload in the assessment process. (Sande & Godino-Llorente, 2014). In contrast, some
researchers (Fachikov, 2001), stated that peer-assessment can be costly for teachers since
it requires students’ training process, detailed organization, monitoring closely.

On the other hand, peer-assessment is difficult to introduce it into the schools or

universities basically because of accountability process (Harvey & Knight, 1996).
Regarding with learning objectives, students are generally expected to complete a task or
performance and their work is graded. When peer-assessment is involved, teacher mark
and peer mark is calculated together to be able to obtain final grade. In this setting, there
can be some raising concerns about objectivity and reliability of peer assessment. To
begin with, students may not be proficient or mature enough for peer-assessment and they
can struggle to assess and reach a judgement.

2.5. Writing Assessment

Students generally consider EFL writing as a difficult area while learning a foreign
language because writing skill is a combination of several subskills such as language use,
vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, etc. Besides subskills, students are supposed to have
background information about the given topic and interesting perspectives appeal readers.
Writing can also be thought as a difficult area for teachers. Teachers need to be aware of
various factors to effectively assess writing tasks in a qualified way.

11
Writing has always been seen as an end-product as it is a productive skill. However,
thanks to changing notions in recent years, it has begun to be considered as a constant
feedback source throughout the course. It offers a great opportunity to keep track of
students’ progress at different stages.

Assessment is an indispensable component of language learning. When it comes to

writing assessment, feedback stands as a significant tool for further language
development. However, giving feedback on writing is expected to be precise and to-the-
point to contribute to language improvement. Writing mainstream feedback comments
such as “Keep up the good work!” or “Well done!” are too vague to benefit for
development (Tuttle, 2009).

When writing tasks are evaluated as a part of formative assessment, it is a long-term

process when teachers are to be patient enough to monitor improvement in students’ tasks.
Furthermore, teachers need to be qualified enough to give meaningful feedback to ensure
effective assessment process (Crusan, 2010). As writing is also a way to communicate
with others, it requires many skills.

Harmer (2006) states that writing is as important as speaking skill and there are several
features that differentiate it from speaking. However, both are productive skills, and they
need to be assisted by constant feedback. In this regard, traditional methods are not
appropriate to construct writing proficiency. Hence, alternative assessment methods such
as self-assessment, peer assessment, interviews, portfolios are required.

2.5.1 Self-assessment in writing

Self-assessment is an authentic assessment method to foster autonomous language

learning by giving more chances to students to monitor their writing improvement.
Panadero at al. (2016) viewed self-assessment as a technique to assess and reflect on
learning processes and products. In this sense, self-assessment is used as process and
performance evaluator in written products based on certain set of objectives. Also, it
provides students with multifaceted process, students can assess and learn at the same
time, which means less tutor support and more independence. The independence

12
increases the quality of working and decreases the structured teacher-centred learning
(Broad, 2006). In EFL writing context, self-assessment promotes students’ autonomous
learning and develop their writing ability (Bing, 2016; Huda, 2020).

Writing is a complex process since it includes various subskills. Most students all over
the world state that writing is the most difficult skill in English. Qatar students in a study
reported that writing is difficult and so it is frustrating subject to learn (Al-Buainain,
2009). Similarly, most Indonesian students share the same thought by mentioning that it
is difficult to acquire (Ratminingsih, 2015). Likewise, Pakistan secondary school students
experience similar problems in writing (Javed, Juan, & Nazli, 2013). Also, Turkish
students struggle to organize and write their opinions in English as a foreign language.
Writing is challenging for teachers and curriculum designers as well as students since the
workload it causes regarding its assessment phase. It needs a good organization, planning
and preparation of assessment throughout the course. However, it is important to
remember that “writing to learn is a powerful tool for students. It helps them clarify their
thinking and understanding.” (Fischer & Frey, 2007, p. 58). Involvement of students in
such a powerful language tool can effectively contributes to their writing competence and
encourage them more for the language skill mentioned as the most difficult component.

Javaherbakhsh (2010) states that using self-assessment in writing classes is beneficial

since it enables teachers to find out learners’ capabilities and the areas to support. El-
Koumy (2001) also believes that considering writing product and writing process
separately is wrong, hence, by utilizing self-assessment instructors can have a better
understanding of students’ writing ability. To conclude, using self-assessment in writing
gives students opportunities to experience different stages of writing and elaborate on
improvement of the target skill.

It is argued by O’Malley and Pierce (1996) that self-assessment makes students consider
about the purpose of writing and show the knowledge they acquire and demonstrate how
it is used. This notion explains that self-assessment is a life-long ability for learners to
able to use in any writing task.

In order for self-assessment of writing to be meaningful and effective, there is a set of

prerequisites that need to be fulfilled. Hence, Liang (2014) created and implemented a

13
three-step pedagogy to enhance students’ ability to conduct self-assessment. Besides
students’ training, the main aim of the mentioned pedagogy is to build scaffolding.

Figure 4. A summary of the three-step pedagogy (Liang, 2014, p.100)

As illustrated above, first stage is teacher modelling, where teachers explicitly express
target skills in the light of a well-defined criteria and they model what they expect from
the students. The second stage is teacher assessment with guided peer-assessment in
which students observe teachers’ attitude towards assessment and work collaboratively
with their classmates to implement peer-assessment. In the final stage, guided inverts into
self-assessment where students independently evaluate their own work and teachers
gradually withdraw from assessment phase.

2.6. Concerns about Self-assessment

In the act of self-assessment, students become more enthusiastic about their performance
and production, and it provides meaningful feedback both for students and teachers to be
able to plan future objectives. Besides its numerous benefits, there are some drawbacks
and limitations about implementing self-assessment in language classrooms. Validity of
self-assessment as an assessment tool is under a serious threat. This issue has been
predominantly investigated as it remains a huge obstacle for validity and reliability of
self-assessment (Butler&Lee, 2010). Gardner (2000) describes this situation as
discouraging for teachers and learners. Irons (2008) supports this notion by stating that
students do not have pedagogic ability to be constructive and supportive in providing
feedback (Irons, 2008).

Another obstacle lying on self-assessment is subjectivity. Students can be biased for their
own performance, which means that they can overestimate or underestimate their
abilities, and this causes inaccuracy in their assessment. While they are overestimating

14
their ability, they can be under the society influence because everyone desires to present
themselves in the best way. Therefore, they can easily ignore and justify their flaws on
their own work, which makes their assessment subjective. It is mostly difficult for
students to be objective for their own works, and they may not have sufficient expertise
and experience to reach such a judgement (Blue, 1994). As self-assessment is a reflection
of students on their own performance, subjectivity is an inevitable concern of self-
assessment. So as to achieve an accurate self-assessment, self-awareness is a key element.
However, as a solution, Saito (2003) suggests that interpretation of self-assessment results
must be used with precaution and teacher should avoid using the self-assessment results
in placement tests, diagnosis tests, admission, or any certification. Thus, utilizing self-
assessment results in the language proficiency process can prevent this drawback.

Another mentioned disadvantage of self-assessment in the previous studies is the role of

teacher in self-assessment process. According to a study, some students believe that they
are doing the teacher’s job (Irons, 2008). Furthermore, they are even doubtful about the
teacher’s subject knowledge (Irons, 2008). To mitigate all these concerns and drawbacks,
it is crucial to use self-assessment as a complementary tool along with external or teacher-
based feedback.

2.7. Self-assessment studies in Turkey

There are several studies based on self-assessment practices in Turkey. One study
conducted by Kaya Yıldırım (2001) investigated the relation between self-assessment
training and self-assessment skills. There was one experimental group who took self-
assessment training and completed an attitude questionnaire. On the other hand, the
students in control group did not receive any training. When data were analysed, the
findings showed that the students in experimental group improved their self-assessment
skills and gave more reliable self-assessment results. Additionally, they also showed
positive attitudes towards self-assessment practice.

Another research conducted by Bayram (2006) examined the role of writing portfolio as
a self-assessment tool in increasing students’ confidence. There were 60 pre-intermediate
level participants in the study within three groups, one experimental group and two
control groups. The findings pointed that there was no significant difference among

15
groups except that experimental group showed more positive attitudes towards self-
assessment.

Banlı (2014) also studied on the effect of self-assessment on improving writing skill. The
participants were 22 Automotive Engineering freshman students in a university. The
students assessed their own works during eight sessions with the help of self-assessment
checklist, student journal, and self-assessment questionnaire. The data obtained from the
study found a positive relation between self-assessment tools and writing skill
proficiency. Moreover, students added that self-assessment tools also increased their task
awareness in writing.

Likewise the previous studies, Cömert (2017) also investigated effect of self-assessment
on writing skills. There were two groups, namely treatment group and control group,
consisting of B1 level university students. The results demonstrated that the students in
treatment group obtained more positive scores after self-assessment practices.

Kızıl (2018) examined advantages of self-assessment and peer-assessment in EFL writing

classes. The participants, seventeen B1 level English preparatory students, were trained
on how to use a rubric to assess a writing task. Students were supposed to evaluate their
own writing task and one of their classmates’ works. At the same time, two teachers also
examined students’ written works as experts. Regarding the study results, students
improved their writing performance, and they learned how to understand rubric. Besides
academic performances, students expressed that they participated in writing lessons more
willingly.

In short, the previous studies made in this field demonstrate that administering self-
assessment has not only developed writing tasks but also increased learner autonomy.
This present study also aims to contribute to the field by focusing on self-assessment’s
impact on writing skill.

2.8. Self-assessment studies around the world

Butler and Lee (2010) conducted a study with 254 sixth grade students from two public
elementary schools in Seoul, South Korea. Of which these schools, one of them is located

16
in upper middle class socio-economic status neighbourhood, the other school is located
in a lower socio-economic status neighbourhood. All participants took a series of pre-test
and post-test and both schools’ students were administered general self-assessment for
summative purposes. However only one school’s students took “unit-based self-
assessment” as a treatment in the study. The results revealed that the students in treatment
group become more capable of self-assessing their performance more accurately.

Another study made by Khodadady and Khodabakhshzade (2012) aims to explore the
effect of portfolio and self-assessment on writing ability and autonomy. The participants
of the study were 59 TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) attending the
writing class at Tabaran University in 2010-2011 academic year. Highly motivated
students to be able to pass the writing class were divided into two groups as experimental
and control group. In the first phase which lasts four weeks, the students in experimental
group were given instructions about how to select, collect and reflect on their tasks in
portfolio and filling self-assessment checklist. In the second four-week phase, since
students showed improvement in self-correction with checklist, they evaluated their own
writing tasks and portfolio works which were randomly checked by teachers later. The
findings demonstrate that the strengths of alternative assessment, i.e., portfolio
assessment, self-assessment, improves students’ writing ability and autonomy.

Similarly, Ratminingsih et. al., (2018) investigated the effect of self-assessment on

students’ independence and writing competence. There were 425 seventh grade students
from thirteen different classes in government junior high school in Indonesia in 2015-
2016 academic year. One group was taught writing in which students are expected to
learn to assess their own work by registering self-assessment whereas the control group
was taught writing by using a conventional method where solely teachers evaluate
students’ works. Questionnaire of students’ independence covering 60 items and test of
writing competence which consists of short functional text requiring students to write an
invitation and long functional text in descriptive text form were implemented on the
participants. The results prove that self-assessment influences students’ independence and
writing competence since the students in experimental group became more aware of their
grammatical usage assisted with checklist and rubric. Additionally, students in the same
group developed a sense of responsibility on their working habits.

17
Heidarian (2016) also designed a study to demonstrate whether using self-assessment is
effective on Iranian EFL learners’ writing. The participants of the study consisted of 48
female learners in intermediate level. The participants were enrolled in two classes in an
institute in Kermanshah. The treatment group and control group were chosen randomly,
and data were collected through Self Reporting Questionnaire on writing and motivation
questionnaire. While the treatment group was instructed writing by using self-assessment
method, the control group was instructed writing by using traditional method. According
to results of pre-administration of instruments, two groups were homogenous, and their
English writing performance was poor. However, the results of post-administration of
instruments revealed that experimental group showed improvement in English writing
performance when compared to the control group. Also, the treatment was proved to be
effective to increase experimental group students’ motivation towards English writing
skill.

Fahimi and Rahimi (2015), similarly, explored the incorporation of self-assessment in

writing and its influence on improving writing skill. The research conducted with 41
Iranian female EFL learners in a private institute in Tehran city, Iran. 17 aged participants
were divided into four classes which were taught by the same teacher. Before the study,
the participants had no experience in assessing their own works. At the beginning step of
the study, the participants were asked to write a piece of writing and assess it. Following
four weeks, the participants were asked to write and assess their own four pieces of
writing based on the criteria discussed by teacher and the teacher also corrected their
writings and gave her own marks. Self-assessment questionnaire which was administered
before and after the treatment and students and teacher’s marks were used as instrumental
tools. The results show that there is a gradual improvement during treatment period.
Moreover, the interviews with some of the participants prove that there is a positive
attitude towards self-assessment.

The study by Belachew et. al., (2014) searched the perception and practice of EFL
learners and teachers towards self-assessment. 50 second year English major students (out
of 240 students) participated in the study and ten EFL writing teachers were randomly
selected to instruct the participants. Classroom writing assignments were parts of the
study. Students were given checklist to self-assess themselves for four essays following
two sessions of trainings. After students evaluated their own works, teachers also graded

18
the same works, as well. From the results of the study, both teachers and students had a
positive attitude towards self-assessment in writing tasks. The findings were also
consolidated with semi-structured interviews for deeper analysis.

Bing (2016) also investigates the effects of students’ self-assessment on students’ writing
by adopting writing assignments, analytic scoring rubric, questionnaires, and interviews.
The subjects of the study were 36 second-year undergraduate non-English students from
a vocational college in Shandong Province, China. During the eight-week of research, the
participants were administered questionnaires, interviews, and they completed writing
assignments. Additionally, they had self-assessment training and learnt how to assess
their own writings and revised their drafts. In the first week of the study, the students
were asked to write an essay about 150-words on the given topic within 30 minutes. After
submitting the first draft (essay), students took questionnaire about their perceptions of
writing skill, and meanwhile teacher assessed students’ essays. In the second week
students were give their first draft and asked to read the drafts carefully with the given
analytic scoring rubric, and the whole process continued in the same way. The findings
demonstrate that overall writing quality of students increased in a consistent manner with
those made by teacher and students. Students performed more accurate organization and
mechanics of their writing, yet the quality of vocabulary and use of English has not
developed to a significant extent.

In conclusion, the findings of the studies mentioned above revealed that self-assessment
practices have positive impact on students’ writing skill, which leads to students’ writing
with less mistakes in their tasks. Moreover, whether the study was conducted in
experimental or quasi-experimental design, it yielded positive impacts on self-awareness
and self-correction.

2.9. Writing Motivation

Various definitions of motivation have been made throughout the years, but Dörnyei
(2009) sustains that motivation is one of the crucial factors in psychology and language
education, which is linked to achievement or failure. Moreover, another study made by
Dörnyei (2000) argues that motivation is a complex and multifaceted concept which
contains different features of L2 for instance attitudes towards L2 and learning situations.

19
Motivation is also closely related to learning process. It can help the learners to fulfil the
objectives set at the beginning of the learning process. There are two types of motivation
defined by Fisher (1990) as intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic
motivation is triggered by themselves and based on needs, wants, attitudes, and beliefs
while extrinsic motivation is triggered by external factors such as teacher, parents, exams,
administrations. Whereas there is no apparent reward for intrinsic motivation, the learners
are generally appealed by rewards that they are planned to obtain at the end of the process
(Fisher, 1990).

Educational psychologists have long lighted the importance of motivation for supporting
students’ learning (Al-Shourafa, 2012). Studies conducted by Gupta and Woldemariam
(2011) revealed that motivation is one of the main driving forces in developing writing
skills of the learners in EFL context. Another study conducted with sixth grade students
indicated a significant positive correlation between motivation and learning reading and
writing (Gditawi, et. al., 2011).

Trying alternative assessment methods, namely self-assessment, can also have positive
impact on students’ motivation towards English writing. A study benefitted from self-
assessment as a tool for promoting Iranian EFL learners’ writing motivation, asked the
participants to have journal and used self-assessment techniques for journal writings. The
findings showed that writing journals regularly promoted learners’ motivation for writing.
Another study conducted in Iranian context, compared three assessment methods, teacher,
peer, and self-assessment, and induced that self-assessment had an advantage over the
other two assessment methods in terms of increasing writing motivation among English
foreign language learners (Jafarigohar, 2020). Similarly, the experimental study by Yan,
et. al. (2020) yielded the results that self-assessment diaries significant enhanced
students’ academic achievement, self-efficacy, and intrinsic motivation.

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3. METHODOLOGY

3.1. Introduction

This chapter aims to give detailed information about research design, participants, setting,
data collection tools, data collection process, and data analysis phases of the present study
respectively.

3.2. Research Design

Mixed research method has been used in the current study to be able to benefit from
strengths of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Since mixed research
method assures more overall validity of the research results, it is better to give more
trustworthy data to interpret (Dörnyei, 2007). The reason to combine both research
methods is neither of the methods is sufficient to grasp the situation. In that, qualitative
and quantitative methods compensate each other’s drawbacks and provide more
meaningful analysis together (Caracelli & Greene, 1997). In other words, mixed method
highlights the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative methods and covers
limitations of both methods (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004).

The current study was planned as a quasi-experimental study with one group with pre and
post-test design which was exposed to the treatment and measured before and after the
treatment via pre and post-test. The researcher obtained qualitative and quantitative data
by various data collection tools. In the quantitative phase of the present study, participants
took a questionnaire, and they were given a writing task for self-assessment, which are
considered as pre-test. As for the qualitative step of the study, six of the students were
interviewed about their experience on self-assessment following the same questionnaire
and writing task applied at the beginning of the study. In the study, the treatment is
regarded as the training and practices between pre-test and post-test, and the difference
between pre-test and post-test provides the effect of the treatment (West, Biesanz & Pitts.,
2000).

The study was designed to compare the difference between students’ performance on
writing and their motivation towards writing tasks after the self-assessment treatment.

21
The students took a five-point Likert scale questionnaire on motivation towards writing
tasks, and they were supposed to complete a writing task. The students used self-
assessment rubric to evaluate their first writing task and they were trained on how to self-
assess their writing tasks. During the study, all students were supposed to write on the
given topic and self-assess their assignments. Meanwhile, the researcher also evaluated
each of the students’ writing tasks. Once the writing tasks and implementation process
were completed, as post-test, all students took the same motivation questionnaire and
writing task used as pre-test at the beginning of the study. Some of the students were
asked written open-ended questions about their experience in the interview. Hence,
obtaining data through different sources at different times increases the potential of
having more reliable findings (Bush, 2012).

In short, the analysis of the study was conducted on the quantitative data from
questionnaire and self-assessment rubrics, teacher’s assessment rubric and qualitative
data from semi-structured interview questions.

3.3. Participants

The participants were selected with convenience sampling method which requires to
choose the participants that are the easiest for the researcher to access. The participant
group consists of eleven ninth grade students in a private high school in Isparta. Students
were in A2 level class (pre-intermediate level) according to the placement test that they
underwent at the beginning of 2022-2023 academic year, and the placement exam results
were evaluated according to CEFR (Common European Framework) and all ninth grades
students were divided into three level classes ranging from A class to C class. A class’s
level was assumed as intermediate level while C class’s level was presumed as elementary
level. The participants’ age was between 14 and 15. The participants stated that they had
no experience in self-assessment practice, and they barely had an idea about how it was
applied. In the study there was only one experiment group for the reason that there was
no other the same age or level class of students in the study school where levelled-class
English program was applied.

22
Table 1. Distribution of the participants’ gender
Gender Frequency (F) Percent (%)
Female 3 27.27
Male 8 72.72
Total 11 100

It is clearly observed in table.1 that there is no equal distribution between participants’

gender. The number of female participants is comprised only 27.27 % of the total
participants whereas male participants consist of 72.72 % of the study.

3.4. Setting

The study was conducted in a private high school in Isparta province in Turkey with
eleven students from one class in the fall semester of 2022-2023 academic year. Similar
to all private schools, the mentioned school is affiliated to Ministry of Education in
Turkey. The participants had ten hours English lessons a week, which means that they
have two hours English lessons every single day. Total number of English teaching hours
in grade 9 is significantly different from state schools, which leads to a greater exposure
to English. English lessons in the mentioned school focuses on all skills and subskills of
English namely reading, writing, listening, speaking, grammar, vocabulary,
pronunciation, spelling, etc. Throughout the eight-week study period, the focus on
Wednesday lessons was writing and they were given two different writing tasks which
are related to the topics that were covered in the lesson by using English File Pre-
intermediate book.

3.5. Data Collection Tools

This section intends to cover the implementation process by starting with data collection
tools. For obtaining quantitative data, (a) motivation questionnaire, (b)pre-test & post-
test scores, and as for qualitative data (c) semi-structured interview questions are used in
the present study.

23
3.5.1. Motivation questionnaire

The motivation questionnaire used as the first data collection tool had 31 Likert type items
ranging from 5-it completely suits me, 4-it suits me, 3-it suits me a bit, 2-it doesn’t suit
me, 1-it doesn’t suit me at all. The English Writing Motivation Questionnaire (Karafil,
2022) (Appendix D) was prepared and applied in Turkish to be able to be sure that all the
participants can comprehend and reply to the written questions. The questionnaire was
conducted at the beginning and at the end of the study to collect data on students’
motivation and attitudes towards English writing tasks. Total 31 questionnaire items were
analysed under three factors; namely the first factor is intrinsic motivation including
questions from1 to 12; the second factor is lack of motivation consisting of questions
from 13 to 24; and lastly the third factor is lack of motivation including questions from
24 to 31.

Table 2. Motivation Questionnaire factors Cronbach Alpha Values (Karafil, 2022)

Factors Cronbach Alpha

Intrinsic Motivation .95

Lack of Motivation .94

Extrinsic Motivation .79

According to factor analysis, first factor ‘s Cronbach Alpha number is .95, second factor’s
Cronbach Alpha number is .94, the third factor’s analysis number is .79. It can be
concluded from these factor analyses that the questionnaire can be evaluated as reliable
and consistent within the questionnaire.

3.5.2. Scores of pre-test and post-test tasks

The second data collection tool was scores of the same writing task used as pre-test and
post-test (Appendix E). The students graded their own writings based on the criteria
determined on the self-assessment rubric given to them Pre-test and post-test writing task
was chosen as parallel to the theme that was studied during English lessons.

24
The rubric (Appendix F) was created by the researcher considering the students’ English
proficiency level for this master thesis. Since students’ level was defined as pre-
intermediate level according to the placement test and additionally this study was their
first self-assessment practice, the rubric was prepared sufficiently clear and
understandable for the participants to grade their own writing tasks. In addition to simple
wording of the criteria, it was created regarding four basic writing subskills namely
content and organization, language use, vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation. The score
interval of the rubric was from 4 to 12, which means that students can grade themselves
with minimum 4 points and maximum 12 points. The points and the interpretations based
on the points were analysed in quantitative part of the study.

3.5.3. Semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interview questions were utilized as the third data collection tool of the
present study. Interviews are one of the most common data collection tools in social
science studies since it delivers more detailed information about participants’ opinions
and perspectives (Brandford & Cullen, 2012). Besides enabling researchers to examine a
certain subject with a set of questions, semi-structured interviews provide the participants
with an opportunity to explain their concerns and ideas with their own words (Dörnyei,
2007; Mackey & Gass, 2005, Borg 2006).

The semi-structured interview questions (Appendix G) were created by the researcher in

mother tongue, Turkish, so students can reflect their in-dept thoughts about the
implementation and provide meaningful and detailed feedback to the researcher. The
interview phase of the study was conducted in written form with six volunteer students
out of eleven participants. The questions targeted to dig more information about what the
participants think about self-assessment practices, whether they have found it useful to
improve their writing skill, the difficulties they encountered with during the study.
Moreover, interview questions aim to elicit more information about whether participants
would like to use self-assessment in their future studies.

25
3.6. Data Collection Procedure

Data collection process started in the first term of 2022-2023 academic year and continued
for 8 weeks sequentially. Before the study started, the necessary permissions were taken
from the ethics board of Süleyman Demirel University including using Writing
Motivation Questionnaire. (Appendices A&B) Following the official approvals, the
researcher obtained a signed consent form from the participants’ parents on behalf of their
children for participating in the study voluntarily in accordance with the legislation of the
Turkish Ministry of Education since they were under 18. (Appendix C) In addition, the
participants stated that they would volunteer for the study after having been explained the
study and process. Meanwhile, the school administration was informed about the study
and how it was supposed to be applied.

The researcher determined on that specific class and the participants by considering the
positive atmosphere of the classroom and students’ interest in developing their English
skills. Before the study began, the researcher informed the students about the whole
process and ensured them that their personal information would be kept confidential. The
application started with writing motivation questionnaire and the students had enough
time to answer the questions by knowing that there would be no bias of them for their
answers. The students, secondly, were instructed about what self-assessment is and is not,
and how it is conducted, how one can assess and grade one’s own writing task. During
the same lesson, the researcher explained every criterion of the self-assessment rubric and
exemplified each criterion with the students’ previous writing task by commenting on
them and completing one assessment rubric. During this explanation, the researcher
switched to native language, Turkish, so as to eliminate any confusion among the criteria.
After the self-assessment training, the students were assigned with their first writing task
which was also considered as pre-test in the study. The students had approximately 40
minutes to write on the given subject and assess their own work. Upon completion of the
pre-test, students were expected to evaluate their own task regarding the self-assessment
rubric. On this phase, students were scaffolded by the researcher for spotting their faults
as it was their first experience in self-assessment.

The training and data collection process lasted eight weeks in which the researcher gave
assignments every Wednesday and the participants were supposed to complete them

26
during the lesson. The participants were assigned with two different subjects every
Wednesday and they completed the tasks and assessed them using self-assessment rubric
within 80 minutes, which is 2 lesson hours. The researcher had an involvement in the
process the moment the students finalized their self-assessment. The researcher evaluated
and graded the participants’ works by using the same rubric. The writing topics (Table
4.) were chosen in accordance with the units and themes that they studied in their pre-
intermediate level course book. Although there was no word limit for writing tasks, the
students were encouraged to write as much as they could, and they were told to take the
length of the work into account while assessing it.

After completing twelve different writing assignments and self-assessing them, in the
last week of the study, as a post-test, the students wrote on the same topic as the pre-test.
The mentioned implementation aimed to depict the difference in accuracy between before
and after the self-assessment practices. In regard with the same reasoning, the students
were instructed to complete the same English writing motivation questionnaire at the end
of the treatment to interpret their thoughts towards writing skill.

As the final step of the study, six participants were interviewed to elicit more detailed
information about the study, effectiveness of self-assessment, English writing motivation.
Randomly chosen six participants responded five reflection questions about the study and
they wrote about their experiences throughout the study. The interview questions, which
were created by the researcher, were asked in native language, Turkish, so that the
students could express themselves clearly. The interviewees were assured that there
would be no bias against them even if they had negative observations about the study.

Table 3. The training and data collection weeks with writing subjects.
Weeks Tasks
1 Self-assessment training
Writing Motivation Questionnaire
Pre-test – Write about your last holiday

2 Write about yourself /school life / routines/ hobbies & interests

27
 Write about somebody in your family their school / life their routines/
hobbies & interests

3 Write a biography of a person who is alive

Write a biography of a person who is dead

4 Write about your summer plans

Plan a stopover tour

5 Describe your city/town

Describe a photography from the course book.

6 Write about one of your dreams and what it means

What do you think will happen in Rob & Jenny^s story

7 Write about things that make you stressed

Is your lifestyle healthy?

8 Post-test – Write about your last holiday

Writing Motivation Questionnaire
Semi-structured interview questions.

3.7. Data Analysis

The present study was designed as quasi-experimental research to establish a cause-and-

effect relation. To observe the cause and effect, qualitative and quantitative data were
obtained from the participants, in that each method can compensate the other’s drawbacks
to draw more accurate and meaningful results. When the overall research results are
constructed on both quantitative and qualitative methods, they can reinforce each other’
results (Creswell, 2014). In this regard, although quantitative and qualitative data were
analysed separately, the conclusive results were drawn by considering both in the current
study.

28
3.7.1. Quantitative data

Quantitative data were collected in two ways, namely the first set of data were taken from
the comparison of Writing Motivation Questionnaire, registered before (Appendix J) and
after the intervention. (Appendix K) The data were processed through SPSS version 29
statistical package program. The second quantitative data were obtained from the written
tasks which were scored by the participants themselves and the researcher by using the
same rubric. (Appendix H&I) To answer the first and second research questions of the
study, non-parametric tests were applied to determine the mean difference between before
and after the treatment. Since the sample size does not meet the requirements of
parametric test, which states sample size is to be at least 30 (Shapiro&Wilk, 1965),
quantitative data were processed via non-parametric tests.

3.7.2. Qualitative data

The qualitative data were collected by semi-structured interview conducted with six
volunteer participants. (Appendix M) The interviews were conducted in one session after
the completion of quantitative step of the study. The five interview questions, created by
the researcher, were formed in native language, Turkish so that the participants could
clearly express their experience, thoughts, and emotions on the study. Each question had
a specific target to measure aspect about the study. The aspects measured via interview
questions were listed as a) the participants’ thoughts and emotions on self-assessment, b)
contribution of self-assessment to writing skill, c) the difficulties that the participants had
during the implementation, d) the participants’ ideas to use self-assessment in the future
studies.

The qualitative analysis phase of the study comprises of preparing and arranging data for
the analysis, then creating codes and themes to interpret the data (Creswell, 2013). For
the qualitative data analysis of this study, thematic analysis was used on the data gathered
from interview questions. It assists researchers to analyse and identify the codes, themes,
and patterns in a textual data, especially in mixed method-driven studies (Braun & Clarke,
2013). It is a valued method since its flexibility to adapt to researcher’s objectives and
offers a rich and deep source of data description (King, 2004). Furthermore, it enables
researchers to compare similarities and differences between the participants’ answers.

29
After in-depth reading of the interview questions, the thematic analysis was conducted by
the researcher by following these steps; organisation of data, pre-reading of the data set,
creation of the themes, and their clear coding, description and interpretation.

Thematic analysis can be conducted in two different methods, inductive and deductive
method (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The first method is inductive method, bottom-up
method, in which codes and themes naturally emerge after you become more familiar
with the patterns due to the multiple in-dept reading of the data set. The second method
deductive method, unlike the former method, uses pre-determined defined codes and
themes within the related conceptual framework or researcher’s prior knowledge. Since
the inductive method offers relatively more flexibility and codes and themes emerge
exclusively from the researcher’s own study, the qualitative data of the present study,
were analysed in accordance with inductive thematic analysis method.

30
4. FINDINGS

4.1. Introduction

This chapter explains the details of the study’s results by detailing the research questions.
Under this chapter, the collected data were examined separately as quantitative and
qualitative analysis, but, in commendation part, all findings were used to be able to make
a constructive conclusion. The findings were discussed concerning the development of
English writing skill, English writing motivation and the participants’ feelings towards
self-assessment after eight-week study process.

4.2. Quantitative Data Analysis

As the first phase of the analysis chapter, quantitative data which were obtained from the
participants’ pretest and post-test self-assessment and teacher assessment scores, and
English writing motivation questionnaire results were examined. Data were described and
interpreted after being examined in descriptive analysis part through means, standard
deviation, and range of scores.

4.2.1. Research question 1

Do ninth-grade students’ writing skill improve after self-assessment implementation?

In the initial step of the study, the students completed a writing task and then evaluated it
by the introduced rubric as a pretest task. Later, at the end of the study, they completed
the same writing task, and they were asked to score their work by using the same rubric.
Although pretest and post-test scores were normally distributed according to the
Skewness and Kurtosis values which are between +1.5 and -1.5 (Tabachnick & Boston,
2013), since the study had a limited sample size non-parametric Wilcoxon signed ranks
test was conducted on scores of pre and post writing tests evaluated by both the researcher
and the participants themselves to compare the means.

31
Table 4. Descriptive analysis of pre and post-writing tests scored by the researcher
N Min. Max. X Sd. z p
Writing Tests

Pre 11 6 7.27 -2.08 .038

9 1.10

Post 11 6 11 8.36 1.50

* .p< .05

According to the descriptive analysis of the pre and post writing tests scores shown in
Table 4., there is an increase in mean of the scores and maximum score given to the works
also increased in the post test scores assessed by the researcher. The mean scores of the
pretest by the researcher was 7.27 out of 12 while the mean scores of the post-test by the
researcher was 8.36 out of 12. According to Wilcoxon signed ranks test results shown in
Table 5., when pre-test and post-test scores by the researcher were compared, and p value
was calculated as .038. Since the (p< .05) equation is valid, it can be concluded that there
is a significant difference between pre-test and post-test results. Moreover, there is an
observed difference in measurements of positive ranks revealing that self-assessment
practices have a positive impact on students’ English writing skills.

Table 5. Wilcoxon signed ranks test analysis of pre and post writing tests scored by the
researcher
Tests N Std. Error p
pre-post writing tests negative ranks 1
positive ranks 9 9.6 .038
ties 1
total 11
* .p< .05

According to descriptive analysis in Table 6., when pre and post writing tests scored by
the participants themselves, it is seen that mean value showed increase in post test scores.
Furthermore, p value was calculated as 0.39 and displayed quite resemblance to the p
value in the researcher’s scores analysis. Regarding Wilcoxon signed ranks test, it was
observed that 8 test scores out of 11 were ranked positively in the post test results. When
these findings were taken into consideration, it can be concluded that the post writing test

32
scores assessed by the participants showed significant difference in the analysis.
Additionally, when the mean of researcher’s and participants’ scores were compared, it
can be stated that the participants graded their works higher than the researcher graded
their writings.

Table 6. Descriptive analysis of pre and post writing tests scored by the participants
N Min. Max. X Sd. z p
Writing Tests

Pre 11 7 8.90 -2.06 .039

11 1.44

Post 11 6 11 9.90 1.44

* .p< .05

Table 7. Wilcoxon signed ranks test analysis of pre and post writing tests scored by the
participants
Tests N Std. Error p
pre-post writing tests negative ranks 2
positive ranks 8 9.4 .039
ties 1
total 11
* .p< .05
Descriptive analysis and Wilcoxon non-parametric tests results on pretest and post-test
scores by the participants were also analysed on the same program. The results (p= .038
and .039), similarly, point that there is a significant difference between before and after
the self-assessment practices, which can be interpreted as that self-assessment has
improved the students’ writing skill. When the mean scores above are explained, it can
be said that there is an increase in both the students’ and the researcher’s assessment
between pre-test and post-test scores. Except one participant, it can be clearly seen that
students’ writing scores have increased after they have had the intervention, self-
assessment.

Moreover, when means scores of the teacher and self-assessment for fourteen writing
tasks including pre and post tests were compared, as Figure 5 suggests that except two
writing tasks, students graded themselves higher than the teacher for twelve writing tasks.

33
The mean of self-assessment scores of all writing tasks was calculated as 9.07 while the
mean of the teacher assessment scores of all writing tasks was calculated as 8.08 out of
12 (Table 8.). When the mean scores were analysed, p value was seen as .006 (Table 8.)
and it proves that there is a significant difference between mean scores of teacher
assessment and self-assessment. These findings resemble the results of another study
(Grez, et al., 2012), which investigated the effectiveness of self-assessment on another
language skill and declared self-assessment scores, for most part, higher than teacher
assessment. On the contrary, there are also some studies which suggest that there is no
significant difference between teacher assessment and self-assessment (Kılıç, 2016;
Salehi&Masoule, 2017; Ünaldı, 2014).

12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Task Task Task Task Task Task Task Task Task Task Task Task Task Task
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Teacher Student

Figure 5. Comparison of mean scores of the teacher and self-assessment per fourteen writing
tasks

Table 8. Descriptive analysis of mean scores of the teacher and self-assessment per fourteen
writing tasks

Assessment Type N X Sd. z p

Self-assessment 14 9.07 0.301 -2.76 .006

Teacher Assessment 14 8.08 0.992

* .p< .05

34
4.2.2. Research question 2

Does self-assessment increase students’ motivation towards English writing?

As for the second research question regarding the participants’ motivation towards
English writing tasks, normality test was applied for the scores of the English Writing
Motivation Questionnaire. The results revealed that the data were not normally distributed
in the range of +1.5 and -1.5 (Tabachnick & Boston, 2013), so non-parametric Wilcoxon
test was registered for the data of pre and post questionnaire scores. Considering the three
factors included in the questionnaire, respectively, intrinsic motivation, lack of
motivation, and extrinsic motivation, means of each factor was calculated and compared
separately.

Table 9. Descriptive analysis of pre and post questionnaire scores

Questionnaire Factors Tests N X Sd p

Intrinsic pre 11 3.42 .70 .68
post 11 3.48 .55
Extrinsic pre 11 2.80 1.19 .50
post 11 2.80 1.13
Lack of motivation pre 11 1.85 .62 .19
post 11 1.73 1.73

According to the analysis above (Table 9.), although there is a slight increase in intrinsic
motivation after the self-assessment intervention, p value (p > .05) reveals that there is no
significant difference between pre and post English Writing Motivation Questionnaire
scores. While extrinsic motivation mean statistically stays the same, there is a slight
decrease in lack of motivation factor. However, these two factors’ significance value also
explains that there is no significant difference between pre and post questionnaire scores.

Table 10. Wilcoxon test analysis of pre and post questionnaire scores
Questionnaire Factors N X z p
Intrinsic pre-post negative 4 7.13
ranks -0.40 .68

35
 positive ranks 7 5.36
ties 0
total 11
Extrinsic pre-post negative 7 5.71
ranks -6.67 .50
positive ranks 3 5.00
ties 1
total 11
Lack of motivation negative 4 6.38
pre-post ranks -1.28 .19
positive ranks 7 5.79
ties 0
total 11

Table 10 points about that in regard with Wilcoxon non-parametric analysis, there is no
statistically significant difference between mean ranks. Thus, it can be stated that self-
assessment practices have no positive impact on students’ English writing motivation in
the current study.

4.3. Qualitative Data Analysis

As mentioned before, individual semi-structured interviews were held so as to gather

qualitative data in the study. Five open-ended interview questions which aimed to elicit
the interviewees’ objective ideas and emotions for the related subject were asked to six
volunteer participants. In the qualitative analysis of the study, inductive thematic analysis
was utilized to interpret interview results. After multiple reading of interviews, codes and
themes naturally emerged and listed below in Table11.

Table 11. Main themes and frequency of codes assigned to students’ semi-structured
interview
Main Themes Codes Frequencies
Assessment Behaviour new experience 5
useful 4

36
 successful 2
spotting mistakes difficulties 4
Motivation boring 3
difficult 1
future use 2
Learning language development 3
writing competence 6
grammar 1
vocabulary 1
sentence formation 1
self-correction 2

4.3.1. Research question 3

What are the ninth-grade students’ perceptions about self-assessment implementation?

For the third research question above, semi-structured interviews were applied, and the
volunteer participants were asked to answer the open-ended questions about the study
process and their thoughts to make a deeper interpretation of the ninth-grade pre-
intermediate level students’ perceptions on self-assessment application in writing tasks.
Each interview question was closely examined, and thematic analysis was employed to
create a framework. Repeated and meaningful content words in the data set were
underlined and then coded, later main themes were phrased.

The obtained codes were categorized into three main themes as a) assessment behaviour,
b) motivation, c) learning according to the relationship with each other. According to
overall interpretation of the data set, the participants believed that they had benefited from
the process despite the fact that they had a few struggles.

Assessment behaviour

Five of the six interviewees stated that the study was their first time to meet self-
assessment practice, and they noted that even if some of them heard about it

37
before, they had not tried this method before. However, even though it was a new
experience for the students, four of them found it quite useful to be aware of their own
mistakes. On the other hand, four interviewees strongly underlined that they struggled to
find their own mistakes while checking with a rubric. According to the researcher’s
observations, this could result from the students’ lack of language proficiency especially
in grammar use and vocabulary because during the self-assessment phase, several
students asked questions about if the sentences were formed grammatically accurate or
inaccurate. In this regard, the related statements about this theme are as follows;

P5: “I remember I have used or heard about self-assessment before I have worked on it, I
have noticed that it is useful to improve my personal skills and abilities.”
P6: “I haven’t tried such a thing before, but I have understood that it is a useful process
to improve my writing skill and sentence formation practices. I had difficulty to find my
mistakes in the sentences. ”
P1: “It is a good method to improve ourselves. I knew this method, but I haven’t used it
before. Nonetheless, I struggled to find the errors in my writings.”
P4: “I haven’t used self-assessment before, but I believed that it developed my language
skills. I also consider using it again to check my upcoming writing tasks. However,
finding my mistakes with the same point of view was sometimes difficult.”
P2: “I haven’t tried self-assessment before, yet it helped me a lot in terms of self-
correction. The difficult I went through was not noticing my mistakes in my writings”

Although the participants reckoned positive about usefulness of the self-assessment, they
struggled to realize their own mistakes. When the participants’ these statements were
consolidated with the researcher’s observations and comparison of mean scores of by the
researcher and participants, it is concluded that their lack of proficiency in the target
language can be one of the reasons of the fact that the participants graded themselves
higher than the researcher and needed teacher support to evaluate their works
grammatically and lexically.

Motivation

Regarding motivation towards self-assessment, since the process lasted 8 weeks in a row,
three students highlighted the length of the process and stated that they occasionally got

38
bored because writing was not their favourite activity. They noted that when compared to
other English skills, writing was inevitably boring than others, and since they felt that
they were obliged to complete the tasks, they could not find it equally interesting or
enjoyable. Similarly, one participant found the process difficult to follow, which made
them demotivated against the study. On the other hand, two interviewees declared that
they enjoyed the whole process, and they were motivated to use the method for their
future studies. In this regard, the related statements about this theme are as follows;

P2: “I don’t believe that I will use it again, because it is difficult.”

P4: “I would like to use it again because it was useful.”
P1: “Self-assessment hasn’t changed my motivation towards writing tasks.”
P6: “Although I like writing in English, after a while I wouldn’t like to write more.”
P5: “It has become boring every week.”

Even though the interviewees reached a consensus about the self-assessment’s being
useful, they declared that it did not result in extra motivation for writing tasks. In line
with motivation factor comments by the interviewees, it can be thought that the study did
not achieve to motivate the students more to write English texts.

Learning

All the interviewees clearly stated the advantages of using self-assessment in writing tasks
by mentioning that they benefited from their own mistakes. Self-awareness of their
mistakes and self-correction contributed to their writing skill, and they concluded that
their writing skill had improved due to the self-assessment practices. Along with writing
skill, one participant thought that the process helped them to improve their grammar use
and lexical skill since they were obliged to spot their faults and learnt the accurate version
from the researcher. Apart from language subskills, three of the students mentioned that
it was beneficial to improve their overall language skills. In this regard, the related
statements about this theme are as follows;

P1: “Seeing that I have started to write better made me happy.”

P4: “It contributed to my writing skills in many ways.”
P2: “It is useful because I notice that I make less mistakes while I’m writing.”

39
P6: “It assisted me a lot to write better and order my thoughts. Moreover, I became more
aware of the grammar rules and used them accurately. Also, it contributed to my
vocabulary skill.”

The comments made by the participants clarified that the students developed self-
awareness skill to be able detect and correct their own mistakes. Since the they started to
learn lesson from their own mistakes, they paid attention not to repeat the same mistakes,
which led them to write with less mistakes in English.

5.

40
6. DISCUSSION

This chapter encapsules the current study by discussing key results of the analysis in
connection with the research questions. Quantitative and qualitative data are interpreted
considering the aim of the study in line with the related literature.

6.1. Discussion of the Findings of the Research Question 1

Research question 1 intended to reveal the relation between self-assessment practices and
the participants’ English writing skill. The gathered data were analysed to observe if the
participants made a notable progress due to the self-assessment treatment. The data were
collected throughout eight weeks via different tools including pre and post writing tasks
and their self-assessment rubrics. Between the pre and post writing tasks duration, the
students were asked to complete twelve different writing tasks and assess their own pieces
of writing with the explained rubric.

To answer the first research question, the students’ pre and post writing tests scores were
analysed and compared to see the impact of the intervention on the writing skill
improvement. In fact, there were two different data set to reply to the research question
1, respectively, the students’ pre and post writing self-assessment scores and the
researcher’s assessment scores on the students’ writing tasks. When both data set were
analysed in SPSS Version 29 via non-parametric Wilcoxon tests, the results revealed a
significant difference between pre and post tasks scores. As the post test scores increased
when compared to pre-test scores, it can be concluded that the participants’ writing skill
showed improvement during the study and they began to write with less faults in terms
of use of English, vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation. Furthermore, the organization
in their writing tasks has developed over time and they grasped the writing topic in better
way. Also, Kızıl’s (2018) quasi experimental study yielded similar results stating that
self-assessment training and practices contributed the preparatory students’ writing skill.
Another study that supported the current study findings was made by Heidarian (2016)
and underlined the effectives of the self-assessment in the participants’ English writing
skill. In sum, most of the studies point a significant impact of self, assessment on students’
writing skill (Bounmediene&Berrahal, 2021; Rarmininhsih et al., 2018; Naeini, 2011;
Wei, 2007). On the other hand, Bing’s (2016) study revealed contrary findings which

41
explain that the participants’ vocabulary and grammar accuracy has not developed to a
significant extent though organization and mechanics in writings became more accurate.

Having been familiar with the self-assessment method increased the participants’
language awareness, which lead to getting more proficient in the target language (Blue,
1994). Similarly, Banlı (2014) highlighted the role of self-assessment on learning the
target language in her study by stating self-awareness because of self-assessment creates
more effective language production in EFL environments. Additionally, Orhon (2016)
also obtained similar results pointing that self-assessment guarantees more conscious
learners and more active learners’ involvement. Thus, it can be discussed that self-
assessment helps to increase students’ active engagement in language process (Joyce,
Weil, & Calhoun, 2009; Budanır, 2022). Hence, the present study also provides similar
results to the literature by revealing the self-assessment contribution to English writing
skill.

The present study’s results indicated that the students overevaluated their writing tasks,
which can be attributed to the qualitative data analysis as the interview answers revelated
that students struggled to realize their error in the writing pieces. Besides, comparison of
the teacher’s and self-assessment scores are presented in Appendix N.

5.2. Discussion of the Findings of the Research Question 2

Research question 2 targets to find out if the students’ motivation towards English writing
increased after being exposed to self-assessment practices. Regarding the mentioned
research question, English writing motivation questionnaire was administered at the first
and the last, eight, week of the study. In between, the participants were introduced with
self-assessment alternative method, and they practiced it on fourteen different writing
tasks including the writing tasks used as pre and post task. The motivation questionnaire
was prepared as a five-point Likert scale by the researcher Karafil (2022) and it was
applied to the participants of the current study. The questionnaire was designed to
measure three factors, intrinsic motivation, lack of motivation, and extrinsic motivation
for English writing.

42
As there were three different components of the questionnaire, they were analysed and
interpreted separately to reach meaningful results. According to motivation questionnaire
analysis results, there was no statistically significant difference in the participants’
motivation for English writing. On the contrary to writing skill improvement, relation
between the students’ motivation and self-assessment method has not created a significant
value, which can be interpreted as that the participants’ motivation has not been
influenced by the self-assessment practices. With the help of the gathered data from semi-
structured interviews, it can be clarified why self-assessment has no positive impact on
students’ motivation whereas it influences writing skill positively. More details of the
reasons behind are discussed in the third research question discussion part.

In contrast to the findings of the study by Karakaya (2017), which stated that self-
assessment created more willingness to participate to the class, the current study findings
have not significantly altered the students’ behaviours for writing tasks. So, the present
study’s findings also contradict with some research as they stated that self-assessment
helps to increase students’ motivation in language skills (Chen, 2015; Nasab, 2015; Başak
2019; Brown, 2004). The studies especially conducted on effect of self-assessment on
writing skill also found positive correlation between self-assessment and writing
motivation (Heidarian, 2016; Banlı, 2014; Nedzinskaite, Švenčionienė, &
Zavistanavičienė, 2006). As discussed in the conceptual framework part, the writing is
regarded as one of the least favourite English skills by the students in different parts of
the world. Hence, even if the participants of the study have reinforced their writing skill,
they still struggle to be more motivated for English writing tasks.

5.3. Discussion of the Findings of the Research Question 3

Research question 3 investigated the ninth-grade participants’ perception for self-

assessment implementation. To shed light on the third research questions, volunteer
participants took the semi-structured interview to elaborate on their thoughts and
emotions on self-assessment practices. Written semi-structured interviews, designed by
the researcher, had five open-ended questions written in the mother tongue, Turkish so
that the volunteer participants can express their ideas clearly and in detail. Furthermore,
they were assured that there would be no bias against their answers and they would be
kept as confidential as the other data collection tool results.

43
The written interview answers were examined multiple times, and they were evaluated
with thematic analysis. Inductive thematic analysis was chosen for the qualitative analysis
of the study. According to the students’ written feedback, three main themes emerged in
the study, assessment behaviours, motivation, learning.

In regard with self-assessment behaviours, most of the students mentioned that even
though it was their first time to practice self-assessment, they found it quite useful to
comprehend their language capacity and use it accurately. Also, stated by Zimmerman
(2002), self-assessment assisted students to become more conscious about their own
language performance. Since they became more aware of their mistakes, they corrected
them and improved their writing competence, which gave them enjoyment of success. On
the other hand, according to semi-structured interviews, they had a consensus on one
difficulty thorough the whole process which is spotting the mistakes. Especially for the
grammar rules, they could not spot some grammatical errors, and they assessed their work
accordingly. When compared with teacher assessment, it seems that they occasionally
graded them with higher points due to the lack of grammatical knowledge. (Appendix N)
However, they could be more aware of their vocabulary and spelling mistakes by utilizing
dictionary after completing their task.

In line with motivation theme of thematic analysis and motivation questionnaire

parametric results, the students underlined the boredom that they had due to completing
fourteen writing tasks in eight weeks in a row. According to the motivation questionnaire
registered at the beginning of the study, the students stated that they completed writing
tasks as they were obliged to complete them. When it comes to the questionnaire results
applied at the end of the research, a few of them were inclined to be more motivated for
writing tasks, yet most of the participants maintained the idea of completing the writing
tasks since they were asked to do it or to be able to get higher final grades for the lesson.
In other words, it can be noted that self-assessment practices in the current study have not
changed the participants’ intrinsic motivation for English writing.

Another important finding of the semi-structured interview was that students increased
their awareness about self-assessment’s contribution to their language development. In
accordance with Lee’s findings (2008), self-assessment is an effective way to enhance
students’ language abilities and skills. Apart from language subskills, the all-interviewee

44
students declared that they were pleased to witness the improvement especially in their
writing skill. Cömert & Kutlu’s study outcomes (2018) also approved the positive impact
of self-assessment on the participants’ writing accuracy.

45
7. CONCLUSION

7.1. Conclusion of the Study

The present study intended to investigate the impact of self-assessment on ninth grade
pre-intermediate level students’ writing skill, English writing motivation and their
perception towards self-assessment. In this regard, a mixed method study was designed
by the researcher to carry out with eleven ninth grade students whose English proficiency
level was determined as pre-intermediate according to the placement test that they took
in the beginning of 2022-2023 academic year. The study was conducted in a private high
school throughout eight weeks by gathering quantitative and qualitative data via various
data collection tools, namely pre and post writing tasks, motivation questionnaire in the
form of a five-point Likert scale, and semi-structured interview.

The outcomes of the study are evaluated under three categories in the light of three
research questions. The findings indicate that self-assessment practices’ positive
influence on students’ writing skill is clearly observed. Although the students graded
themselves higher than the researcher, when pre and post-test writing tasks were
evaluated by both the students and the researcher, there was an increase in students’
writing scores in terms of accuracy and organization. Hence, self-assessment practice can
be included in formative assessment process as an alternative assessment tool as it is
powerful and guiding force in the learning process (Bing, 2016). This study also echoes
the similar findings of the previous studies in the field. (Heidarian, 2016; Ratminingsih
et. al., 2018; Büyükkarcı, 2014; Khodaday & Khodabakhshzade, 2012; Liang, 2014).

As for students’ motivation, the current study results reveal that self-assessment practices
do not lead a significance increase on the students’ English writing motivation.
Motivation questionnaire analysis implied that the students claimed to lack motivation
for the writing tasks at the beginning and at the end of the study, which is in line with the
findings of the study by Belachew et. al. (2014). Although self-assessment
implementation in the study was confirmed to have constructive role in writing
improvement, it failed to motivate students more for writing tasks in contrast to some
previous studies (Dickinson, 1995; Gardner, 2000; McMillan & Hearn, 2008).

46
As mentioned at the introduction part, the study also explored the students’ perception
for self-assessment. The data obtained from semi-structured interviews explained that the
students have positive perceptions on self-assessment since their writing performance
increased as an outcome of self-awareness (Butler & Lee, 2010; Khodadady &
Khodabakhshzade, 2012; Birjandi & Tamjid, 2010). On the other hand, they mentioned
the difficulty of identifying the errors while assessing their own writing tasks. The
difficulty which they had resulted from the participants’ proficiency level as noted by
Sadler and Good (2006). Similar to Bing’s (2016) findings, the study found that the
students relatively easily recognized smelling mistakes on the contrary to grammatical
and organizational mistakes, which created discrepancy between self-scores and
researcher’s scores.

6.2. Limitations

The study aimed to find out the impact of self-assessment on writing skill and writing
motivation. The study could have been designed as an experimental study, but the sample
size was the most prominent obstacle for this study. The sample size was limited to eleven
students because the school in which the study was conducted had levelled English
classrooms. In other words, the ninth-grade students were divided into three classes
according to the placement exam as elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate classes.
Selecting two classes for the study was not appropriate since the English proficiency
levels differed in classrooms. Hence, the sample size consisted of eleven students, which
means that the results of the study represent only a small size of students in Turkey.
Therefore, this study cannot be generalized to the whole students’ population in Turkey.
This situation also resulted in not designing an experimental study because dividing the
class into two groups as experimental and control group would have made the sample size
even smaller.

Another limitation of the study was that the data collection process had to be limited to
eight weeks to be completed in the first semester. Having writing lessons every
Wednesday during eight weeks, without breaks, created boredom among students, and
they naturally reflected this feeling in motivation questionnaire and semi-structured
interviews. If the study duration was more than eight weeks and not constricted to one
semester, the students’ motivation view could have been altered.

47
Having only one scorer in the study can be reckoned as another drawback of the study.
Since the researcher and the teacher/scorer is the same person, teacher might have biases
about the students due to the previous classroom experiences. Also, to increase validity
and reliability of the study and yield more accurate results, it is more effective to have
more than one scorer. The present study had only one scorer, the researcher, to grade
students’ writing tasks and compare them with students’ self-assessment scores.

Lastly, some of the participants stated that they struggled to identify the errors, especially
grammatical errors and to include rich variety of vocabulary, which led them to grade
their own work higher than the researcher. Although all the participants’ proficiency level
was assumed to be pre-intermediate according to the placement criteria, their personal
engagement in the language outside the classroom could have led some changes. While
some expose themselves to the language outside the school, which enables them to be
more knowledgeable about the language, the others’ involvement in English is restricted
to classroom instruction.

6.3. Suggestions for Further Studies

This study has a few suggestions for the further studies on the subject. First of all, the
participants of the study were A2 (pre-intermediate) students, and they stated in the semi-
structured interview that they struggled to identify their errors, which resulted in scoring
themselves higher than the researcher. Hence, higher proficiency level of students could
be selected as participants for the further research, and they could name their faults with
more ease and grade themselves on rubric accordingly.

Second, the number of the participants in the present study was eleven, which made
difficult to generalize the results. It can be suggested that increased number of the
participants could yield more generalizable results for the literature.

Third, this study was conducted throughout eight weeks within an intense schedule. The
participants were expected to complete two different writing assignments every
Wednesday, which resulted in repetition causing boredom. For this reason, future studies

48
could be carried out in a longer period. Hence, when students have longer break times
between two writing lessons, they could feel more motivated for the tasks.

Finally, to increase reliability and validity of the study, other teachers, or scorers could
be invited to examine students writing tasks and compare the scores with the researcher’s
scores. When tasks are graded by at least two experienced teachers, there might be more
trustworthy results.

The present study has significance as it yielded meaningful results in terms of writing
development; however, researchers could carry out a further study with a larger and
higher level of participants in longer period to eliminate the limitations of the study.

49
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APPENDICES

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Appendix A. Ethics Committee Approval 1

60
Appendix B. Ethics Committee Approval 2

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Appendix C. Parent’s Consent Letter
Veli Onay Mektubu

Değerli Velimiz;
Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Anabilim
Dalında Tezli Yüksek Lisans programı kapsamında “The effect of self-assessment on
students’ writing competence” (Öz değerlendirmenin öğrencilerin yazma becerisi
üzerindeki etkisi) çalışması yürütmekteyim. Araştırmamın amacı öğrencilerin kendi yazı
çalışmalarını, verilen kriterler ışığında değerlendirmeleri ve geliştirmeye açık alanları
kendilerinin keşfetmesidir. Bu çalışmada; İngilizcede diğer alanlara kıyas ile daha az
motivasyon duyulan yazma becerisinin gelişiminde ve yazma motivasyonun artmasında
öz değerlendirmenin etkilerini gözlemlemeyi hedefliyorum.
Bu çalışma kapsamında; öğrencilerimiz 6 hafta içerisinde English File kitabımız
akışındaki yazma çalışmalarını ders rutini içerisinde yapacaklar ve sonrasında onlara
vereceğim yazı ölçeği ile kendi yazılarını değerlendireceklerdir.
Araştırma okul yönetiminin ve öğrencilerimizin bilgisi dahiline gerçekleştirilecektir.
Çalışma sırasında ve sonrasında hiçbir kimlik belirleyici bilgi istenmemektir. Araştırma
uygulamasına katılım sizin ve öğrencilerimizin rızasına dayalı olmaktadır.
Tez çalışmama destek vermenizi rica ediyor, şimdiden teşekkür ediyorum.
Saygılarımla,
Melike ÖZELCİ
İngilizce Öğretmeni

Velisi bulunduğum 9B İngilizce kur sınıfı ………….. numaralı öğrencisi

……………………….………… ‘in yukarıda açıklanan araştırmaya katılmasına izin
veriyorum.

…..../……/20….
Veli Adı-Soyadı: İmza

62
Appendix D. Writing Motivation Questionnaire

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Appendix E. Pre and Post Writing Task

The researcher intends to evaluate the issue of improving students’ English writing skills
using self-assessment. Please answer the questions according to yourself and make sure
that you write as many sentences as you relevant to the topic. Your answers will be
completely confidential. Also, your answers will be used as data in the researcher’s work.
Thank you very much for your cooperation in advance.

Write a text regarding of your last holiday. You can use guiding questions.

1. Where did you go?

2. Who did you go with?
3. Where did you stay?
4. What did you do?
5. Did you do anything exciting/interesting?

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 Appendix F. Self-Assessment Rubric

3 2 1

I fully understood the I had difficulty to I barely understood the

Content & task. understand the task. task.
Organization
There was effective There was weak There was no beginning,
beginning, middle and beginning, middle and middle and ending.
ending. ending.

Language Use I had almost no I had some grammatical I had many grammatical
grammatical mistakes. mistakes. mistakes.

Vocabulary I used rich range of I used some of the I used very poor range of
vocabulary related to vocabulary items related vocabulary related to the
the topic. to the topic. topic.

Spelling & I had almost no I had some spelling and I had many spelling and
Punctuation spelling and punctuation mistakes. punctuation mistakes.
punctuation mistakes.

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Appendix G. Semi-structured Interview Questions

Interview Questions
Name Surname: Class:

1) Öz değerlendirme hakkında ne düşünüyorsun? Daha önce öz değerlendirmeyi

biliyor muydun? Kullanıyor muydun?

2) Sence öz değerlendirme senin İngilizce yazı yazma becerini geliştirdi mi? Faydalı
oluğunu düşünüyor musun? Ne açılardan faydalı olduğunu düşünüyorsun?

3) Öz değerlendirme yaparken yaşadığın zorluklar nelerdi?

4) Gelecekte İngilizce yazı çalışmalarında öz değerlendirme kullanmak ister misin?

Niçin?
5) Öz değerlendirme İngilizce yazı yazma motivasyonunu değiştirdi mi? Nasıl
değiştirdi?

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Appendix H. Some examples of the Students’ Pre Writing Task

67
68
Appendix I. Some examples of the Students’ Post Writing Task

69
70
Appendix J. Some examples of the Students’ Writing Motivation Questionnaire
(Before the Study)

71
72
Appendix K. Some examples of the Students’ Writing Motivation Questionnaire
(After the Study)

73
74
Appendix L. Some examples of the Students’ Writing Tasks and Related
Self-assessment

75
76
77
78
Appendix M. Some examples of the Students’ Interviews

79
80
81
 Appendix N. Scores of Self-assessed and Teacher Assessed Tasks

Pre-test TASK 1 TASK 2 TASK 3 TASK 4 TASK 5 TASK 6 TASK 7 TASK 8 TASK 9 TASK 10 TASK 11 TASK 12 Post-test
Students

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher

Teacher
Self

Self

Self

Self

Self

Self

Self

Self

Self

Self

Self

Self

Self

Self
7 8 9 6 9 6 8 6 9 9 9 6 8 5 9 7 9 7 10 10 9 9 10 9
1

10 9 9 7 10 10 11 10 11 9 10 9 11 10 10 11 11 10 11 11 11 11 12 11 11 11 9 7
2

11 7 8 9 9 9 9 8 9 8 8 8 10 9 11 10 10 10 9 10 8 10 11 9
3

7 7 4 7 4 7 5 10 5 10 6 7 4 7 5 7 4 7 5 11 4 10 4 10 4 9 6 10
4

8 6 9 9 9 6 9 7 9 7 9 7 9 7 8 6 9 7 10 9 9 8 9 8 10 8 11 8
5

10 6 10 6 9 6 10 7 9 7 10 7 9 5 9 9 10 10 10 9 10 10 11 8
6

8 6 10 9 10 9 10 5 8 5 8 7 11 8 8 6 9 6 8 8 8 9 7 7 8 11 10 8
7

10 8 9 7 9 8 10 9 10 9 10 7 11 7 10 11 10 11 11 9 10 8 11 7
8

9 7 10 9 10 8 9 6 8 7 10 6 9 6 9 8 10 9 11 8 10 7 10 8
9

9 8 10 11 12 10 11 9 11 9 10 10 11 9 10 10 11 9 11 10 9 8 10 6
10

8 9 9 9 9 9 9 7 8 7 10 9 8 6 9 11 8 11 9 11
11

82