Identification of problem assessment criteria by students : an example in chemistry course during the first year in high school.
ROLLIN-LAURENT, Sabine, 1997
This research addresses three questions : - what is the representation which the students make for themselves about chemical problem-solving achievement ? - if a student has identified a criterion in a self assessment device, is he/she able to meet this criterion in following problems ? - are the results different for more able from those for less able students ? 
The main bases of this research are found in the discourses of formative assessment and didactics of chemical and physical science. The criteria which the students use to assess their responses can be related to their knowledge of the scientific field involved and to the other characteristics of their representation of the achieved task. We consider that these criteria are linked essentially with two concepts in the didactic field. The "didactic contract" is the set of rules which allows the relationship between teacher, student and scientific knowledge to function successfully. The second concept is "relation to knowledge". In a formative assessment device, there is a student-centered regulation-loop : a student can decide to improve his/her response by meeting a criterion which he/she has identified. 
This research was conducted at the moment of the chemistry course when the teacher introduced the concept of amount of substance. The students were asked to solve chemical problems using this concept, and then they had to assess their responses, by identifying what is right in it, and what are the errors. We collected more than three hundred evaluation sheets. From the data analysis, we found out that students used more general criteria than criteria related to the chemical knowledge which they are supposed to be learning. even if each student is able to identify few criteria, an identified criterion is more often met in following problems, and this result is more obvious for less able than for more able students.