Improving Students´ Self-Assessment of Numerical Analysis Projects

Students need self-assessment skills, yet in our experience, these skills appear to be severely lacking in undergraduate students. Descriptions from student interviews and related education research results suggest ways to increase students´ ability to self-assess. Grading students´ projects on how they form links to analytical solutions or physical situations will communicate the importance of self-assessment. Along these lines, explicit heuristics or strategies have been developed for teaching analytical problem-solving skills most of these include a final ldquocheckrdquo or ldquoevaluaterdquo step. An entire numerical analysis project could focus on self-assessment, for example, giving students a completed project and asking them to assess it, or (for less-experienced students) giving them an assessed project and asking them to evaluate or complete the assessment.