Ongoing and holistic self assessment as a developmental practice: learner agency, reflection and identity formation in higher education

This study examines Ongoing and Holistic Self Assessment (OHSA) as a process-oriented framework for cultivating evaluative judgement and learner agency in higher education. Drawing on two qualitative datasets, reflective journals from undergraduate students engaged in OHSA and reflective essays from Ultra-Orthodox women participating in a heutagogically designed course, the study explores how different distributions of evaluative authority shape autonomy, reflection and identity negotiation. Thematic analysis identifies four interrelated processes: individual formative self-assessment as metacognitive inquiry; group formative self-assessment as dialogic negotiation of meaning and responsibility; summative self-assessment as the enactment of evaluative judgement; and the integration of formative and summative reflection into a coherent developmental trajectory. The study advances assessment scholarship by differentiating between partial and fully self-determined self-assessment configurations and by conceptualising evaluative authority as a developmental dimension of learning rather than a fixed structural feature of assessment design. The findings demonstrate how sustained reflective self-assessment cultivates agency, identity formation and accountable judgement. In the context of generative artificial intelligence, where product-based assessment is increasingly unstable, OHSA offers a coherent model for learner-owned, process-based evaluation in culturally diverse higher education settings.