Depth of Knowledge and self-assessment are two complementary concepts that foster deeper learning and mastery in secondary and higher education.
Self-assessment encourages students to reflect on their academic progress and take ownership of their learning journey, while the Depth of Knowledge framework guides students from basic knowledge recall to higher-level, critical thinking tasks.
By integrating self-assessment with the Depth of Knowledge approach, educators empower students to enhance both their subject knowledge and their ability to think critically.
In this article we’ll explore the concepts of self-assessment and Depth of Knowledge, how they complement one another, and what institutions can do to embed self-assessment as a core learning strategy.
What is self-assessment in education?
Self-assessment is the process of students evaluating their own academic work, skills, and learning processes. It’s a reflective process that helps learners identify their strengths and weaknesses, assess their performance against educational objectives, understand their learning processes, and motivate them to take ownership of their educational outcomes.
Self-assessment encourages students to go beyond simply learning facts by rote by encouraging critical thinking and a deeper engagement with their subject matter. It also promotes personal responsibility for learning outcomes, making students more self-reliant and readying them for life after they graduate.
What is Depth of Knowledge in education?
Webb’s Depth of Knowledge framework is a way to categorize educational tasks according to their complexity and cognitive demands. It was developed by Norman Webb and is used by educators to design activities that progressively develop students’ understanding and skills. It comprises four levels:
- Level 1 – Recall and reproduction: Recalling given facts or processes
- Level 2 – Skills and concepts: Making decisions about how to approach a problem
- Level 3 – Strategic thinking: Reasoning, planning, and evidence-based justification
- Level 4 – Extended thinking: Synthesis, evaluation, and application over time
In Biology, for example, Level 1 simply requires new students to memorize the stages of mitosis. But, by Level 4, they will be designing experiments to understand the factors that can impact mitosis rates in different cell types. Turnitin’s Jill Crivelli notes that, in social studies, students are “expected to analyze multiple primary sources, synthesize information, draw conclusions, and justify positions with credible evidence as early as sixth grade.” She describes these “cognitively rigorous tasks” as aligning with Webb’s Depth of Knowledge levels three and four and notes that these shifts in 21st-century learning encourage students to become active participants in the learning process.
The Depth of Knowledge framework provides a structured learning ladder to help students move from superficial subject knowledge to critical engagement with core concepts. This is essential for deeper learning outcomes, where students can solve real-world problems and novel challenges without leaning on educators, textbooks, or known solutions.
But how does self-assessment support this process?
How does self-assessment enhance Depth of Knowledge?
Self-assessment supports Depth of Knowledge by encouraging metacognition – ‘thinking about thinking’. By engaging in reflective practice, students:
- Become aware of the gaps in their knowledge and how best to fill them
- Are empowered to advance their knowledge and mastery of their topic
- Develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills via the self-assessment process
This naturally encourages students to move beyond simple rote memorization (Level 1 of DoK) to deeper engagement with their topic (Levels 3 and 4).
However, if we think of learning as a subject that students need to master in its own right, self-reflection also moves them from Level 1 to Level 4 learners.
Rather than passively absorbing information from their teachers and tutors, students seek to actively understand their own learning process, and synthesize and apply that knowledge to improve their performance over time.
As such, self-assessment doesn’t just encourage students to develop subject mastery, but mastery of their thinking and learning. It is a tandem process that uses deeper self-knowledge to enhance subject knowledge.
An example of how self-assessment enhances Depth of Knowledge
Let’s take a look at the biology example above. As a student progresses through the learning levels, they move from rote memorization to active engagement with core concepts. At Level 3, they have been asked to design an experiment to test how temperature affects the rate of mitosis in plant cells.
Before submitting their assignment, they’re asked to complete a self-assessment questionnaire that requires them to reflect on their methodology and provides the learning outcomes for the assignment.
The student is prompted to think about their experiment design – such as whether they’ve controlled for external factors and collected sufficient data. As a result, they review their assignment and realize they haven’t accounted for key variables. They revise their experiment design before submitting their assignment.
This activity not only improves the student’s understanding and application of core concepts, it also gives them the tools to approach their next assignment with more rigor.
These benefits can be further expanded if the educator discusses the students’ self-assessment with them – allowing both the student and tutor to better understand that individual’s learning preferences, strengths, and areas for improvement.
What are the benefits of self-assessment for students’ Depth of Knowledge?
Academic research finds a clear correlation between self-assessment and Depth of Knowledge, conferring numerous benefits to students in their educational and professional careers.
Higher retention and mastery
As discussed above, self-assessment helps students to progress through Webb’s Depth of Knowledge framework, developing deeper subject mastery. Using this framework alongside self-assessment ensures students go beyond surface-level reflections and achieve deeper learning outcomes.
Critical thinking and independent learning
Self-assessment encourages students to question, analyze, and evaluate their understanding of a topic. This fosters higher-order cognitive skills like critical thinking and problem-solving, which support both subject mastery and a more independent onward learning journey, including lifelong learning and self-efficacy (Koppe, Verhoeff, and van Joolingen).
Better academic performance
A meta-analysis has shown self-assessment interventions positively impact academic performance (Pitt and Quinlan). For example, a 2022 study of 159 Economic and Business Education students found those that who used self-assessment tools before summative assessment performed better than those who didn’t (Ifenthaler, Schumacher, and Kuzilek).
Higher academic integrity
There is a complex interplay between self-assessment and academic integrity. However, focusing on a learning and growth-orientated mindset – rather than simply a results-orientated mindset – may reduce inclination towards academic misconduct. Plus, the higher academic outcomes associated with effective self-assessment may also reduce the academic pressure to engage in dishonesty to achieve desired grades.
Challenges in self-assessment
While self-assessment confers many benefits to students who engage with it effectively, there are challenges, particularly around the accuracy of students’ self-assessment.
A literature review on the topic found ‘correlation between self-ratings and teacher ratings, between self-estimates of performance on a test and actual test scores, and between student and teacher judgments based on a rubric tended to be only weakly positive’. Furthermore, students with strong use of one self-assessment method may not know how to use another, and students can tend toward being ‘unrealistically optimistic’. (Brown, Andrade, and Chen, 2015).
Also, it’s important to be aware that students also have different levels of commitment to self-assessment, including no self-assessment, superficial self-assessment, intermediate and advanced. Plus, students with advanced self-assessment skills are more likely to be negatively affected by external feedback (Panadero, Fernandez, Pinedo, and Garcia-Perez).
There can also be institutional misconceptions around student self-assessment, such as conflating self-assessment with self-grading. It’s important to note that self-assessment is a tool for students to take greater responsibility for their learning and not replace educators’ feedback and assessment.
Institutional support for self-assessment
Institutions can help overcome these challenges by:
- Providing support and training for students in a range of self-assessment practices
- Discussing and reflecting on students’ self-assessment as part of the learning process
- Creating a supportive learning environment where students feel safe to be honest about their challenges and areas of improvement
- Encourage peer review to help students gain new perspectives on their learning
- Balancing self-assessment with constructive external assessment and interventions
Resources for student self-assessment
There are various student self-assessment tools available to educators, applicable to different stages of Webb’s Depth of Knowledge framework. For example, from the list below journals and checklists are most suitable at Levels 1–2, while group projects and reflective essays work at Levels 3–4:
- Reflective journals: Keeping a journal to document their learning progress, achievements, and areas to improve
- Questionnaires and checklists: Completing a checklist before submitting work to review the thoroughness of their approach
- Presentations/discussions: Speaking about achievements and progress towards learning goals
- Group projects: Collaborating with peers to assess their own approach to learning
- Reflective essays: In-depth reflection on their understanding and challenges in different learning contexts
- Self-rating scales: Rating their proficiency in different areas of learning, to identify areas for improvement
How technology supports self-assessment
Educational technology can support self-assessment by providing students with intuitive tools that provide instant feedback and actionable recommendations. For example:
- Integrity reports: Students can use Similarity Reports and AI writing reports to review and assess drafts of their own work, helping them identify areas that may need citation or revision
- Multiple draft submissions: By allowing students to submit multiple drafts of the same assignment without flagging their own previous work, this enables iterative self-assessment and improvement
- Rubric integration: Online rubrics help students review their drafts and feedback based on specific assignment criteria
Empowering students for the future
Self-assessment and reflective practices aren’t just about academic success. They’re about preparing future-ready graduates who have the skills they need to thrive in the modern professional world. Society – and technology – is changing faster than ever and graduates need resilience, adaptability, and a commitment to lifelong learning if they want sustainable success.
As such, self-assessment isn’t just a nice-to-have educational strategy. It should be a central strategy and ethical priority for institutions, supporting both student and national economic success.