Can students predict their grade accurately in order to self-regulate?

Students' skills in self-regulation are critical for achieving sound learning outcomes. They are also important for effective life-long learning. It has been found that learners who actively self-regulate achieve higher grades and are more confident than their peers (Pintrich, 1995; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001). Moreover, educational scholars are convinced that nurturing students' skills in self-regulation entails engaging them in structured, regular diagnostic assessment and self-monitoring, which leads to metacognitive reflection on their learning (Crisp, 2012; Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006). PURPOSE This paper investigates whether on-campus students possess adequate skills to self-regulate their learning and tries to establish the means by which we can nurture students' capacity for self-regulation. DESIGN/METHOD Seventy one student enrolled in a third year unit on electrical engineering were asked to predict their grades for two class tests that were conducted in weeks 6 and 9 of a 12-week semester. They evaluated the expected marks three times: (i) directly after the reading time, (ii) straight after they had completed the test and (iii) after the test solutions were presented to them. These predictions were compared with each other and with the actual test grades obtained by the students. In order to gain further insight into the results of student predictions, their Task Evaluation and Reflection Instrument for Student Self-Assessment (TERISSA) (Belski, 2007) responses were also analysed. RESULTS As it had been anticipated, most students were unable to make accurate predictions of their test results after reading the task. On average students over estimated their grades by nearly 26% in test 1 and by 11% in test 2. High performing students were better able to accurately predict their actual marks, then the rest of the class.