Self-assessment and self-grading in the Degree in Sports Science: census analysis of teaching guides

The Bologna Process understands assessment as a part of the teaching and learning process. It is so-called formative assessment, being self-assessment an essential part of it. Self-assessment can be conceived having two potential actions. First, as a teaching and learning method, being its purpose to teach students how to assess their own work. Second, as self-grading, in order to grade their own achievement with direct impact in their final mark of the course. This study aims to explore the use of self-assessment and self-grading processes in the Degree in Sport Science. 1,761 teaching guides from the syllabus of the 40 Spanish university faculties with attendance studies were analyzed. Thus, this is a population-based study. Results showed that self-assessment is presumably used in 14.99% of subjects: 7.55% with formative purposes, 9.43% as self-grading and 1.65% employ both. Significant differences were found for ownership, university, region and number of credits. Increased use in some regions and universities shows the territorial influence and the existence of teachers' communities of practice. These results are far lower compared both to another similar research based on self-reported data collected by surveys (Panadero, Brown, & Courtney, 2014), in which 89.7% of teachers reported they use self-assessment and 66.2% self-grading. Therefore, this research is relevant to provide a suitable overview of the implementation of self-assessment and self-grading in the Degree in Sports Science.