IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ireced/v24y2017icp50-64.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning by doing: Do economics students self-evaluation skills improve?

Author

Listed:
  • Guest, Jon
  • Riegler, Robert

Abstract

This paper attempts to (1) measure the students’ ability to accurately self-evaluate the quality of their own work, (2) see if this level of accuracy changes when students evaluate a second year essay, having evaluated a similar piece of work in the first year, (3) Investigate whether there is any significant variation in any of the observed changes and (4) identify any factors that might explain any of the observed variation. The data is generated from one cohort of students who were studying for an economics degree at a UK university. The self-evaluation exercise was introduced on two out-of-class essay assessments – one in the first year and one in the second year. Statistical analysis revealed that, on average, the students were significantly more accurate at self-evaluating the quality of their work in the second year than they had been in the first year. However there was considerable variation in this improvement. Those students who demonstrated the greatest improvement were firstly those who were awarded higher marks by the tutor for their second year essay and secondly, those who had been the least accurate at judging the quality of their first year essay. Other student characteristics such as different measures of student ability and gender had no significant impact on the changes in accuracy. However, there is no clear picture about what exactly is driving the improvement.

Suggested Citation

  • Guest, Jon & Riegler, Robert, 2017. "Learning by doing: Do economics students self-evaluation skills improve?," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 50-64.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ireced:v:24:y:2017:i:c:p:50-64
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iree.2016.10.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477388015302553
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.iree.2016.10.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clifford Nowell & Richard M. Alston, 2007. "I Thought I Got an A! Overconfidence Across the Economics Curriculum," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 131-142, April.
    2. Paul W. Grimes, 2002. "The Overconfident Principles of Economics Student: An Examination of a Metacognitive Skill," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1), pages 15-30, January.
    3. Ehrlinger, Joyce & Johnson, Kerri & Banner, Matthew & Dunning, David & Kruger, Justin, 2008. "Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of (absent) self-insight among the incompetent," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 98-121, January.
    4. Paul Ferraro, 2010. "Know Thyself: Competence and Self-awareness," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 38(2), pages 183-196, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brookins, Philip & Lucas, Adriana & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2014. "Reducing within-group overconfidence through group identity and between-group confidence judgments," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-12.
    2. Gerardo Sabater-Grande & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Noemí Herranz-Zarzoso, 2023. "Goals and guesses as reference points: a field experiment on student performance," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 94(2), pages 249-274, February.
    3. Dennis Caplan & Kristian G. Mortenson & Marisa Lester, 2018. "Can incentives mitigate student overconfidence at grade forecasts?," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 27-47, January.
    4. Ryvkin, Dmitry & Krajč, Marian & Ortmann, Andreas, 2012. "Are the unskilled doomed to remain unaware?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1012-1031.
    5. Belayet Hossain & Panagiotis Tsigaris, 2015. "Are grade expectations rational? A classroom experiment," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 199-212, April.
    6. Schlösser, Thomas & Dunning, David & Johnson, Kerri L. & Kruger, Justin, 2013. "How unaware are the unskilled? Empirical tests of the “signal extraction” counterexplanation for the Dunning–Kruger effect in self-evaluation of performance," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 85-100.
    7. Grabiszewski, Konrad & Horenstein, Alex, 2020. "Effort is not a monotonic function of skills: Results from a global mobile experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 634-652.
    8. Sawler, James, 2021. "Economics 101-ism and the Dunning-Kruger effect: Reducing overconfidence among introductory macroeconomics students," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    9. Jan R. Magnus & Anatoly A. Peresetsky, 2017. "Grade Expectations: Rationality and Overconfidence," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-054/III, Tinbergen Institute.
    10. Matteo Foschi, 2016. "Contracting with Type-Dependent Naïveté," Discussion Papers in Economics 16/03, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    11. Arnold, Ivo J.M., 2020. "Gender and major choice within economics: Evidence from Europe," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    12. Martinez, Gabriel X., 2023. "Studying like a nerd: Spacing, self-testing, and explanatory questioning in principles of microeconomics," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    13. Dirk S. Yandell, 2017. "Grade Expectations and Overconfidence: Is Economics Different?," Journal for Economic Educators, Middle Tennessee State University, Business and Economic Research Center, vol. 17(2), pages 18-28, Fall.
    14. Karla Borja & Suzanne Dieringer, 2023. "Telling My Story: Applying Storytelling to Complex Economic Data," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 328-348, June.
    15. Nicholas A. Wright & Puneet Arora & Jesse Wright, 2024. "I Promise to Work Hard: The Impact of a Non-Binding Commitment Pledge on Academic Performance," Working Papers 2411, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    16. Willis, Veronda F., 2016. "A model for teaching technology: Using Excel in an accounting information systems course," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 87-99.
    17. Rohit Aggarwal & David Kryscynski & Harpreet Singh, 2015. "Evaluating Venture Technical Competence in Venture Capitalist Investment Decisions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(11), pages 2685-2706, November.
    18. Ann L. Owen, 2010. "Grades, Gender, and Encouragement: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(3), pages 217-234, June.
    19. Feld, Jan & Sauermann, Jan & de Grip, Andries, 2017. "Estimating the relationship between skill and overconfidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 18-24.
    20. Joseph Maderick & Steven Grubaugh & Gregg Levitt & Allen Deever, 2021. "Social Awareness and Ideology: Self-Assessment and Socio-Civic Knowledge Competence," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 22(1), pages 409-444, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Student self-evaluation; Feedback; Independent learning skills; Economics teaching;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A22 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Undergraduate

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ireced:v:24:y:2017:i:c:p:50-64. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-review-of-economics-education .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.