Fostering evaluative judgement in mathematics: involving students in evaluation

A fundamental goal of higher education is to develop students’ life-long learning capability. There is growing evidence that classroom assessment practises impact students’ approaches to learning, academic outcomes and future learning. This study explores how fostering students’ evaluative judgement competence – the capability to judge the quality of work of self and others – can enhance mathematics learning through carefully designed assessments which are both sustainable and transferable to future learning and job-related contexts. Using interventions such as exemplars, rubrics, feedback, self-assessment and peer assessment, students were provided with learning opportunities to practise evaluative judgement by understanding, justifying and producing work based on pre-defined quality standards and criteria. Data were collected over two semesters from undergraduate mathematics courses in Norway and Germany, examining three aspects of learning outcomes: (a) cognitive outcomes (e.g. student-generated artefacts), (b) affective outcomes (students’ motivation and satisfaction) and (c) behavioural outcomes (e.g. engagement). The findings suggest that evaluative judgement interventions had a positive overall impact on academic performance. However, the effectiveness and extent of these interventions varied depending on factors such as students’ characteristics and assessment cultures. The results can inform future research and practises to cultivate Self-Regulated Leaning (SRL) and evaluative judgement in mathematics education.