DLESE description of Can Students Predict Their Scores in Exams?

This article describes a statistical study in which students were asked to predict their own exam scores. The actual and predicted scores of 61 students in 6 years of an advanced plant genetics course and the differences between their actual and predicted scores were analyzed by various statistical measures. An overall mean difference between actual and predicted scores showed that the students, on average, were able to predict their scores within 5 percent of the actual value. However, students were not able to predict their exam scores accurately or precisely; the difference between actual and predicted scores was statistically different from zero. In addition, student demographic types such as age, GPA, or level of education were not significant factors for accuracy in predicting marks on the exam.