This study explores how students' self-regulation, operationalized as self-assessment ability, and L2 writing develop over one semester. 11 students were asked to compose and self-assess 10 essays during an Academic Writing programme. The self-assessment scores were compared to teacher assessment, while the essays were analysed by computational tools. Little correspondence was found between group and individual data. The accuracy of self-assessment developed nonlinearly and the interaction between self-assessment and teacher assessment were dynamic. Participants used shorter sentences at the end than at the beginning of the study.
Self-assessment (SA), one of the phases of self-regulation, plays an important role in second language (L2) writing. Previous studies on SA adopted group research designs, but insights from the Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) approach suggest that metacognition such as self-assessment might be a dynamic construct. This study explores how students' self-assessment ability and L2 writing develop over one semester. 11 students were asked to compose and self-assess 10 essays during an Academic Writing programme. The self-assessment scores were compared to teacher assessment, while the essays were analysed by computational tools. The study found little correspondence between group and individual data. The accuracy of self-assessment developed nonlinearly and the interaction between self-assessment and teacher assessment were also dynamic. Participants used significantly shorter sentences at the end than at the beginning of the study.
