STUDENT TEACHERS’ BELIEFS ABOUT SELF-ASSESSMENT

The aim of the presentation is to show the results of a longitudinal study conducted during the student teachers' long-term individual practice in a partner school.The rational of the research is to explore student teachers' beliefs related to selfassessment, which is the engine of self-regulated learning and the key of continuous professional development.Only a few empirical studies focus on student teachers' self-assessment examining mainly the accuracy of self-assessment.Some of them concluded that applying formative assessment including self-assessment in teaching practice is rather problematic, although there is much potential in applying it.The number of studies reflecting on student teachers' beliefs on self-assessment is limited.Our research tries to fill up this gap by forming the following research questions: a) How do student teachers conceptualize self-assessment?b) Which metacognitive strategies can be identified in their beliefs?c) Which factors influence extended use of self-assessment as a method in their everyday teaching practice?To answer the questions, a longitudinal action research strategy was used in the qualitative paradigm.The research took four years.The sample consisted of nine student teachers altogether, five in the experimental and four in the control group; eight of them were from Eszterhazy Karoly Catholic University, one was from Debrecen University.All the student teachers completed their one-year long teaching practice at Dobo Istvan Secondary School, Eger.The results are based on the analysis of data gained from input and exit interviews with student teachers divided into an experimental and a control group.All student teachers in the experimental group were supervised by the same mentor teacher.She supported them by carrying out self-assessment regularly.The members of the control group had different mentors and they did not do self-assessment regularly.The other sources of data were semi-structured interviews made with the members of the experimental group after each self-assessment, student teachers' written reflections and the mentor teacher's reflections after class observations.The validity of the results was provided by theoretical, data and methodological triangulation Cohen's Kappa coefficients proved high reliability of coding.According to the results, student teachers' self-assessment concept is much more complex than that one revealed by former international researches.The student teachers believe that self-assessment is crucial in in the learning process and professional development, however, they do not apply it consciously, furthermore, only a few of them uses it in their teaching practice.The student teachers' self-assessment profiles justified that each student teacher takes a different learning path during teaching practice, thus they need more personalized support implying further aspects of mentors' professional development.Self-assessment backs student teachers in identifying their strengths and weaknesses but not all of them are able to develop professional learning goals.Therefore, the mentor needs to pay more attention to help student teachers to link their needs to learning goals.The research results have also shown that effective ways of managing of emotions is pivotal in realizing self-regulation; therefore, more activities supporting self-knowledge, self-understanding would be beneficial in teacher training.