Students’ Self Assessment of Academic Attainment: accuracy and stability from 7 to 16 years and influence of domain and social comparison group

Pupils’ appraisals of their own ability have been found to be important in their school progress. This paper examines the accuracy and stability of academic self assessments from 7 to 16 years, and the effect of two factors on developments over time: domain/school subject (mathematics or reading/English) and social comparison group (general to children of the same age or specific to own class). Results come from a major longitudinal study of pupils in London schools. An overall lowering in self assessments from 7 to 16 years was accompanied from 11 years by greater accuracy. But systematic differences were found between domains; overall ability ratings were higher in reading/English, and there was more stability in ratings from 11 to 16 years. There was a marked drop in self assessments from the general to the own class social comparison group. But again there were domain differences: there was a greater drop at 11 and 16 years in reading/English.