Can 1st-Year College Students Accurately Report Their Learning and Development?

Many higher education studies use self-reported gains as indicators of college student learning and development. However, the evidence regarding the validity of these indicators is quite mixed. It is proposed that the temporal nature of the assessment—whether students are asked to report their current attributes or how their attributes have changed over time—best accounts for students’ (in)ability to make accurate judgments. Using a longitudinal sample of over 3,000 first-year college students, this study compares self-reported gains and longitudinal gains that are measured either objectively or subjectively. Across several cognitive and noncognitive outcomes, the correlations between self-reported and longitudinal gains are small or virtually zero, and regression analyses using these two forms of assessment yield divergent results.