Contrasting case instruction can improve self-assessment of writing

Abstract

Self-assessment is a process during which students evaluate the quality of their work in a given domain based on explicitly stated criteria. Accurate self-assessments improve students’ academic achievement. Yet, students often have difficulties assessing their own work. It is possible that appropriate instructional supports will help students overcome these difficulties. To test this premise, we compared the effects of presenting and discussing examples of well and poorly written stories (contrasting cases) with the effects of only presenting and discussing examples of well written stories (good cases only) on students’ writing. Fifty-three 6th-grade students in two history classrooms were randomly assigned to either the contrasting cases or good-cases-only instructional conditions. Results showed that students in the contrasting cases instructional condition created stories of better quality, developed a deeper understanding of the assessment criteria, and became better able to identify areas in need of improvement. This study is one of few efforts applying perceptual learning theories to improve academic skills in everyday classroom settings. The use of contrasting cases provides a promising yet a simple instructional approach that both teachers and students can use to improve writing and self-assessment. © Association for Educational Communications and Technology 2015.

Full text

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contrasting case instruction can improve self-assessment
of writing
Xiaodong Lin-Siegler
1
•David Shaenfield
2
•
Anastasia D. Elder
3
Published online: 20 June 2015
Association for Educational Communications and Technology 2015
Abstract Self-assessment is a process during which students evaluate the quality of their
work in a given domain based on explicitly stated criteria. Accurate self-assessments improve
students’ academic achievement. Yet, students often have difficultiesassessing their own work.
It is possible that appropriate instructional supports will help students overcome these diffi-
culties. Totest this premise, we compared the effects of presenting and discussing examples of
well and poorly written stories (contrasting cases) with the effects of only presenting and
discussing examples of well written stories (good cases only) on students’ writing. Fifty-three
6th-grade students in two history classrooms were randomly assigned to either the contrasting
cases or good-cases-only instructional conditions. Results showed that students in the con-
trasting cases instructional condition created stories of better quality, developed a deeper
understanding of the assessment criteria, and became better able to identify areas in need of
improvement. This study is one of few efforts applying perceptual learning theories to improve
academic skills in everyday classroom settings. The use of contrasting cases provides a
promising yet a simple instructional approach that both teachers and students can use to
improve writing and self-assessment.
Keywords Self-assessment Contrasting cases History story writing
Introduction
Self-assessment is a learning process during which students evaluate the quality of their
work by comparing it to explicitly stated criteria and making needed revisions (Andrade
2010; Andrade and Warner 2012). It is an important component of students’ self-regulated
&Xiaodong Lin-Siegler
xlin@tc.columbia.edu
1
Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
2
Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT 06825, USA
3
Mississippi State University, Starkville, USA
123
Education Tech Research Dev (2015) 63:517–537
DOI 10.1007/s11423-015-9390-9

learning processes and academic success (Dunlosky and Rawson 2012; Kostons et al.
2011; Pintrich 2004; Zimmerman 2006,2008). Self-regulation, especially self-assessment
is often difficult for students, especially young and poor performing students (Azevedo
et al. 2008; Elder 2010; Kostons et al. 2011). One possible explanation is that this may be
due to a lack of appropriate instructional support. To investigate this premise, we con-
ducted a classroom-based experiment to test whether contrasting-case based instruction
that engages students in analyzing and using contrasting examples (good vs. poor) while
studying assessment criteria as opposed to the use of good examples only would improve
the quality of the work students produce and the self-assessment of that work.
Two lines of existing theories and research provide support to our study. The first line
involves theories and research suggesting that self-assessment is a critical component of
self-regulated learning processes, and it facilitates self-regulation of writing. The second
line of research concerns the potential benefits of instructional support on the development
of students’ self-assessment abilities. In particular, why contrasting case based instruction
is believed to help students develop these abilities.
Self-assessment is a critical component of self-regulated learning
processes
Self-assessment is a critical component of self-regulated learning (Azevedo et al. 2008;
Falchikov and Boud 1989; Greene and Azevedo 2007; Kostons et al. 2011; Zimmerman
and Schunk 2011). Self-regulation process consists of three phases: planning, execution,
and revision (Greene and Azevedo 2007; Kitzantas and Zimmerman 2006; Winne 2005;
Zimmerman 2000). These phases interact in a cyclical process in which the students plan
their learning tasks, perform the tasks, monitor during performance, evaluate the results,
and make revisions (Labuhn et al. 2010; Zimmerman 2000; Zimmerman and Kitsantas
2002). Self-assessment takes place throughout the regulation cycle. As such, self-assess-
ment, regulation and learning together enable students to achieve a desired learning out-
come (De Bruin and Van Gog 2012; Dunlosky and Hertzog 1998; Thiede and Dunlosky
1999). For example, when students used judgments of how well (self-assessment) they
understood certain concepts to study for their upcoming exam, they typically spent more
time studying the concepts that they judged that they did not know well (self-regulation of
learning) (Higham 2013; Metcalfe 2009; Van Loon et al. 2013).
Studies of self-regulated learning typically asked students to select which part of the
learning materials they wish to re-study or reanalyze, before or after taking tests (De Bruin
and Van Gog 2012). The correlation between students’ assessment of what they should re-
study and what they actually study served as an indication of the quality of their self-
regulation. Accurate assessments helped students make decisions over what part of their
work needed improvement and where they should invest more effort (Koriat 2012; Koriat
et al. 2006; Lin 2001; Nelson 1984). Students who were able to assess their own learning
usually comprehended instruction better and solved problems more effectively (Brown
1978,1987; Flavell and Wellman 1977; Pintrich et al. 2003; Schraw 2009; Veenman 2011;
Winne 2005; Zimmerman 2006,2008). The focus of the present study is to help students
develop self-assessment skills in order to improve their self-regulation and academic
performance.
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Self-assessment facilitates self-regulation of writing
Writing is a pervasive activity that is crucial for students’ success in schools (Graham and
Hebert 2011; Graham et al. 2012; Scardamalia and Bereiter 1985). Flower and Hayes
(1980) argued that writing is a self-regulated learning process. It involves planning what to
write, gathering information relevant to the main writing topic, organizing thoughts,
generating sentences, self-assessing if writing goals are met and evaluating the quality of
the completed products. ‘‘This process is not a matter of simply having students deter-
mining their own grades or a rating…’’ (Andrade et al. 2010, p.199). Students need to
reflect upon and articulate the strengths and weaknesses in their writing and identify
specific areas that need improvements in order to produce high quality work (Andrade
2001,2010; Andrade et al. 2008; Falchikov and Boud 1989; Eva and Regehr 2008a,b;
Sargeant et al. 2008).
Thus, self-assessment of one’s own writing involves integrating one’s own writing with
information from external sources, such as criteria and examples for what makes good or
poor quality writing (Andrade 2010; Elder 2010; Sargeant 2008). Research by Hacker et al.
(2009) found that self-assessment activities improved essay writing in elementary and
middle school classrooms. Their findings suggest that training students to use the infor-
mation obtained from their self-assessments improved not only their subsequent revision of
the writing, but other cognitive, affective and social processes involved in writing. Other
research studies also found that effective self-assessments led to strategic adjustments in
writing behavior (Harris and Graham 1992; Pressley and Harris 2006; Zimmerman and
Risemberg 1997).
A considerable body of research evidence suggest that self-assessment of one’s own
writing is an intrinsically difficult task, especially for struggling young writers (see
Andrade and Boulay 2003; Glaser and Brunstein 2007; Graham 2006; Graham and Harris
2003; Harris et al. 2010). This is because they often (1) lack the knowledge to differentiate
the characteristics of well-constructed composition from poor ones (Graham and Harris
2000; Harris et al. 2010); (2) show almost no evidence of planning and self-assessment of
their writing unless they are explicitly instructed to do so (Graham 2006; Graham and
Harris 2000); and (3) have low expectations for their academic work and hold on to inflated
judgments of their own writing (Harris et al. 2009; Lin et al. 2010). Yet, teachers often ask
their students to engage in self-assessment, when they may not have the skill to do so.
Hence, instructional supports should be provided to scaffold students to effectively engage
in activities of self-assessment (Pintrich 2000; Zimmerman and Schunk 2011).
Instruction that supports the development of self-assessment
The second line of research relevant to the present study concerns the effects of instruc-
tional support for students’ self-assessment. One approach to support self-assessment
involves teaching students various types of self-regulation and self-assessment strategies
during the writing process. For instance, the well-known self-regulated strategy develop-
ment (SRSD) program (Graham and Harris 2000; Harris et al. 2010) provides multifaceted
instructional interventions: teaching both genre-specific strategies for composition (e.g.,
strategies for setting writing goals and revising stories) in conjunction with multiple self-
assessment and self-regulation strategies (e.g., self-instruction, goal setting, assessing work
using a set of criteria and examples, and self-revision). In general, the SRSD instructional
Contrasting cases and self-assessment 519
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model improved writing and self-assessment with above average students more than with
struggling students (Graham and Harris 2003). This might be because teaching effective
self-assessment strategies did not explicitly address the difficulty associated with a lack of
ability to differentiate good quality writing from poor quality writing. Even if a student
learned effective self-assessment strategies, the flaws in writing products were often not
visible to struggling writers (Glaser and Brunstein 2007). As such, they simply do not
know what specific parts of their composition need revision.
Rubrics-based instruction is a tool that teachers often use to scaffold students’ self-
assessment in writing (Andrade 2001,2010; Moskal 2003). A rubric usually has two
characteristics: a list of criteria for what counts as excellent and poor quality of work; and
examples illustrating how the work should look like based on the criteria, so that students
can compare their work with the desired examples (Andrade 2001,2010). Teachers use
rubrics as a means of communicating expectations for an assignment, providing focused
feedback on work in progress, and grading final products (e.g. Andrade 2001,2010;
Andrade and Du 2005). The process usually begins by teachers and students studying a list
of criteria, viewing a good example of a particular assignment, and discussing how various
criteria are reflected in the example. Next, students complete the assignment and self-
assess their work using the rubric, check list, and example. Finally, students identify areas
that they need to improve in their work (Andrade and Warner 2012).
It is often taken for granted that rubrics are an adequate instructional technique for
facilitating students’ self-assessment of their own writing. Well-developed rubrics have
improved the quality of students’ writing and knowledge about what counts as effective
writing (Andrade et al. 2009). However, depending on the quality of criteria and the
examples used in the rubrics, the effects vary. In some studies, students found that rubrics
were often abstract and not straightforward enough for them to use, Thus, researchers find
it difficult to draw solid conclusions about students’ improvement in writing and self-
assessment in relation to the use of rubrics (Andrade et al. 2008,2009; Andrade and
Boulay 2003; Norcini 2003; Winne and Nesbit 2010).
Using examples along with criteria was more helpful than providing criteria or exam-
ples alone (Andrade et al. 2008). However, simply handing out and explaining a rubric
with good examples only could increase students’ knowledge about the criteria, but was
not effective when students assessed their own writing (Andrade and Boulay 2003). It did
not actively engage them in noticing and analyzing distinctive features that differentiate
good and poor writing and applying what they learn about these features in assessing their
own work (Andrade et al. 2008; Graham and Perin 2007). These findings suggest that,
instead, students were more likely to notice important features that differentiate good from
poor writing when using different examples to exemplify the assessment criteria (Andrade
et al. 2008,2010; Winne and Nesbit 2010).
Contrasting case based instruction
Contrasting cases are instructional materials designed to help students notice distinctive
characteristics that they might otherwise overlook (Schwartz et al. 2011; Schwartz and
Martin 2004). Contrasting cases can make new properties and features of a given concept
explicit so that even novice learners will not miss them (Schwartz et al. 2011). This
approach originated in theories of perceptual learning that emphasized people’s ability to
differentiate knowledge they acquire (Bransford et al. 1989; Gibson 1969; Gibson and
Gibson 1955; Schwartz and Bransford 1998). The overall goal of using contrasting cases is
to highlight similarities and differences along a common dimension and help people notice
520 X. Lin-Siegler et al.
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specific dimensions that make the concepts distinctive. This kind of instructional support
should be particularly important to struggling writers since they usually have difficulties
identifying limitations of their own writing.
Although studies that empirically tested the effects of contrasting case-based instruction
on self-assessment of writing are scarce, a number of studies have documented benefits of
having students analyze and discuss contrasting examples when learning new subject matter
(Gentner et al. 2011; Wang and Baillargeon 2008). For example, contrasting case-based
instruction improved school age children’s learning mathematical concepts (Hattikudur and
Alibali 2010; Richland and McDonough 2010; Rittle-Johnson and Star 2009); children’s
acquisition of verbal meaning (Childers 2008; Childers and Paik 2009); physics (Hestenes
1987; VanLehn and Van De Sande 2009); social skills (Gick and Holyoak 1983;Thompson
et al. 2000) and college students’ business analysis abilities (Gentner et al. 2003).
Many researchers noted the importance of presenting the contrasting examples side by
side in order to notice relevant distinctions. Gentner et al. (2003), for instance, advocated that
analyzing contrasting cases concurrently, rather than one at a time, was key to producing
benefits. This was because when cases were examined one at a time, students tended to focus
on surface features, had more difficulties in retrieving what was learned, and were less likely
to notice important differences between the cases. For example, college students who
compared two business cases by reflecting on their similarities and differences concurrently
generated higher quality business solution strategies than those students who read and
reflected on the same set of contrasting cases sequentially (Gentner et al. 2003).
These findings have not been empirically tested in classroom settings. The experi-
ences of analyzing contrasting examples should help students notice and detect weak-
nesses in specific areas of their writing for further improvement. Hence, contrasting case
instruction should engage students in analyzing how specific components of the criteria
are well or poorly implemented in story writing, which in turn should lead to a deeper
understanding of the criteria, improved writing, and subsequent self-assessment. This is
especially relevant for poor performing students who have difficulties with writing and
self-regulation.
In the present study, we investigated whether analyzing and discussing a well written
and poorly written story side-by-side (contrasting cases) produced better quality writing
and self-assessment than analyzing and discussing two well-written stories side-by-side.
We used a pretest, posttest quasi-experimental design in a sixth-grade classroom that
served a number of low academically achieving students. Using models of good story
writing represented the standard experience in schools and served as our control condition.
We hypothesized that students receiving the contrasting cases-based instruction would
create stories of better quality, gain deeper understanding of the criteria for assessing their
work, and be better able to identify areas in need of improvement, compared to students in
more traditional instruction using only good model cases.
Method
Participants
Fifty-three 6th-grade students (N=53) participated in our study. They were from two
classes taught by the same social studies teacher at a diverse, public middle school
Contrasting cases and self-assessment 521
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(65 % African–American, 15 % Hispanic, 15 % Caucasian, and 5 % Asian/Pacific Islan-
der) located in a southern state of the United States. Ninety-two percent of our participants
qualified for free lunch and 52 % were female. About 46 % of the participants in this
school pass state standardized tests in mathematics and language arts each year.
Design and procedures
Our study lasted 3 days and it took place during the 3 weeks when students studied a unit
on Ancient China. In this unit, all of the students researched two different ancient Chinese
dynasties, Qing and Ming Dynasties, and wrote a story about a day in a child’s life for each
of the two dynasties. A week before the intervention, all of the students (1) researched both
dynasties, (2) were given six criteria for what makes a good story to guide their story
writing (the explanation for the criteria development will be discussed in a later section of
the paper), and (3) wrote a story about Qing dynasty (pre-test story). After the students
submitted their stories about Qing dynasty and prior to receiving feedback and a grade
from their teacher, the classes were randomly assigned to one of the two intervention
conditions: (1) the contrasting cases instructional condition (N=27) which received two
exemplar stories that contrasted good and poor features of story writing according to the
given rubrics; and (2) the good-cases-only instructional condition (N=26) where only the
features of good stories were presented in two story examples.
On the first day of the intervention, for both conditions, the teacher began the class by
introducing the goals and plans for the class. She then led the class in using the criteria to
analyze and discuss the two exemplar stories (either two contrasting stories or two good
stories). The analysis and discussions for both conditions centered on what the students like
or dislike about the stories, what was interesting about these stories, and the kinds of things
that were good and poor in each story. The teacher also asked students to identify specific
dimensions of the stories that illustrated how each of the six rubric criteria was imple-
mented in the stories. For instance, the teacher would say: ‘‘Rubric criteria #1 says that the
stories should have main thesis. Do you think that the example stories have main thesis? If
so, how did the author do that? Which sentence(s) or paragraph described the main thesis
in the story?’’
For both conditions, the teacher started the second day by asking students to write a
story about Ming Dynasty (post-test measure). On the third day of the intervention, stu-
dents in both conditions conducted an assessment of their own stories and submitted a
report on what aspects of their stories were particularly strong or weak on the basis of the
rubrics, and how they could be improved (see Table 1for descriptions of instructional
activities for both conditions). The two conditions were identical in all instructional
activities and the amount of time spent in analyzing the examples. They only differed in the
types of example cases, contrasting cases versus good cases only, which were used during
instruction.
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Table 1 Descriptions of instructional activities during the intervention
Activities for both contrasting and good case only
conditions
Examples
Day one: introduced goals of the interventions
analyzed and discussed example stories (whole
class) students were asked to created a plan for
their story writing
‘‘For the next 3 days, we will use double class periods
in the morning analyzing and discussing how each
of the 6 criteria was used by other students to
develop their stories. Analyzing these examples will
help you write your story about Ming dynasty and
self-assess the quality of your story’’.
So, today, we will analyze and discuss two stories.
Tomorrow, you will write your story about Ming
dynasty. The day after tomorrow, you will be asked
to self-assess the quality of the story.
‘‘Are we clear?’’
The teacher asked similar questions to students in
both conditions, but students gave different
responses since the two conditions provided
different stories (e.g. contrasting vs. good stories
only).
The teacher asked the following questions throughout
the whole class discussions and students took notes
and marked all over the stories: ‘‘(a) What specific
features you like about story A and B? (b) Which
stories do you rather read? And why? (c) What these
two stories share in common and how are they
different? (d) How does story A or B talk about…?
Do you like it? Why and why not? (e) Why do you
feel that story B is too long and boring? (f) Are
there any good features about A and B you would
like to combine when you write your story about the
Ming dynasty? Why? (g) Are there any parts of
story A or B that you absolutely want to avoid doing
for your own story writing? (h) Which features of
the story A and B reflected the uses each of the 6
criteria? (i) Which parts of the stories you would
like to revise because they did not reflect the 6
criteria for what makes a good story?’’
‘‘Now, please write a plan for how you plan to use
each of the criteria in the story about the Ming
dynasty that you will write tomorrow. You should
give examples for each criteria and how you would
use it in your story writing’’.
Day two: students wrote the story about ming
dynasty
‘‘Today, you will use the criteria, the examples we
discussed yesterday in class and the plan you
created to write your story about a day of a child life
in Ming dynasty. Let me know if you run into any
questions’’.
Day three: students assessed their own story The teacher gave out our self-assessment
questionnaire. Students assessed their own stories
and other measures were also given out to the
students.
Contrasting cases and self-assessment 523
123

Instructional materials
We developed the following instructional materials to help students’ writing and the self-
assessment of the stories: (1) six criteria (based on rubrics) to guide the students’ story
writing and the assessment of the stories; (2) two contrasting stories: one illustrating
characteristics of a well-written story and the other exemplifying features of a poorly
written story; and (3) two well-written stories: highlighting characteristics of what good
stories should be like.
Criteria (rubric) development
The teacher and the researchers jointly developed a rubric using criteria for good and poor
historical story writing using the Houghton Mifflin Social Studies Textbook Support series
(1999) and evidence from research literature (e.g. McCabe and Peterson 1984; Schneider
and Winship 2002). Six criteria were recommended as appropriate and frequently used in
evaluating quality of story writing in social studies. According to these criteria, a good
story should (1) have a clear main thesis explaining what was most important about the
ancient time period that the students researched; (2) have detailed examples to explain how
people, particularly children, lived their everyday life; (3) make historical facts come alive
by including specific characters and events; (4) present events and characters in a logical
and connected manner; (5) teach important lessons; and (6) raise some questions about that
period of history for further inquiry. We used these criteria to guide our development of the
stories used for instructional interventions of the present study (e.g., the two contrasting
stories and the two good stories).
Story development
The good story was written with a very compelling main idea. The story was about a girl’s
life during the period when India was trying to gain independence from Britain. It pre-
sented a story about how this girl and her family lived their everyday life during this time.
For instance, the story explained why boys usually went to schools while the girls stayed
home during that time. The story also used the conversations among family members to
make the historical facts and events alive. By referring to a speech by Mohandas Gandhi,
the story taught an important lesson: people could have a revolution without using violence
and hurting others. The sequence of events and characters were presented in a logical and
connected manner. The story ended by raising specific questions that require further
research and study, such as: ‘‘Will people believe Gandhi and follow his lead? How can we
win our independence from Britain without a violent revolution?’’
The poor story had the same content and length as the good story, yet it failed to satisfy
many of the major criteria listed above. For example, the main thesis of the story was not
very clear. It described the girl’s life without any further information about the historical
contexts when the story occurred. It presented the historical facts and events with no clear
logic and connections among them. It was not clear what important lessons one could draw
from the story. Only superficial and general questions were raised at the end, such as ‘‘what
will happen to my country and my family?’’ Table 2presents examples of the stories used
as contrasting cases in our study.
For the good cases only group, we used the same good Indian story that was used in the
contrasting cases condition. An additional story about a different family living in the same
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Table 2 Examples of contrasting stories used in the study
An example of a well-
written story
This is a story about peace and freedom in India in 1940s. Hello! My name is Sunia.
I am 11 years old. I have three older brothers and a younger sister. I live in
Tilonia. My village is on the banks of the Ganges River—a good place for farmers
like my family to live because there is water even during the dry season.
We are not rich people. My parents, aunts and uncles get up very early every
morning to get water from the town well and to milk the cows. Then they get the
plow ready to go out to the fields. My brothers work during the day and go to
school at night, but I do not go to school at all because I am a girl. A girl’s proper
place is at home, doing domestic work. This is because many people in my village
feel that the benefits of a girl’s education will be enjoyed by others, since a
daughter, typically, leaves her family after marriage. I listen to the grownups talk
about the news my uncles bring from the city. One day they saw a very respected
man, Mahatma Ghandi. Ghandi is a strong believer in Hinduism. He was giving a
speech about kicking the British out of India. People say we would be better off if
we ran our own government. Ghandi said, ‘‘We can achieve our independence
from the British without a war—without weapons and without hurting anyone.
Non-violence is our weapon’’. ‘‘That’s impossible’’, my uncle said. ‘‘He must be
crazy to think the British will give up India without a fight’’. I hope Gandhi’s right
about not having a war—it scares me to think about a war right here, in my own
village. Ghandi also thinks that we need to make some big changes in our society
after we have our own government. He says we should stop discrimination against
the untouchables—the families who for centuries have had the nastiest jobs. He
says: ‘‘They are the Children of God’’. But other people think the untouchables are
only able to do the dirty jobs that no one else wants.
I wonder what will happen in my country: Will people believe Ghandi and follow
his lead? Why and why not? How can we win our independence from Britain
without a violent revolution? Could the untouchables really be treated the same as
the rest of us? It’s an exciting time to be in India.
An example of a poorly-
written story
Hello! My name is Sunia. I am 11 years old. I have three older brothers and a
younger sister. I have lots of uncles and aunts. I live in Tilonia, a small village in
India. My village is on the banks of the Ganges River—a good place for farmers
like my family to live.
I stay home helping my parents with household chores. We grow our own food,
taking care of cows, etc. The cows are holy animals that cannot be harmed. My
parents are very busy every day. Since I stay home most of the time during the
day, I also listen to the grownups talk about the news my uncles bring from the
city. One day they saw a very respected man, Mahatma Ghandi. He was born and
raised in India and went to college in London. He later became a spiritual and
political leader in India. He launched a movement of non-violent resistance to the
Great Britain’s ruling. Gandhi’s political and spiritual hold on India was so great
that the British rulers dared not to interfere with him. That day, he was giving a
speech to a large crowed about his spiritual and political views: India should run
itself and should be independent from the British ruling. However, we should earn
the independence peacefully, not violently. People say that we would be better off
if we ran our own government. I hope we do not have a war—it scares me to think
about a war right here, in my own village.
My parents, aunts and uncles get up very early every morning to get water from the
town well and to milk the cows. Then they get the plow ready to go out to the
fields. My uncles go into the city to sell the milk at the market. We kids take care
of the cows, water buffaloes, and goats then go out to the jungle to find food. My
brothers go to evening school because they have to work in the daytime.
I think there is a lot going on in my country right now, but since we live here in the
village, we don’t hear much about it. The village just got its first radio a few weeks
ago. I wonder what will happen to my country and my family.
Contrasting cases and self-assessment 525
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period time in India was used as an example of a second good story. The contrasting and
the good stories were presented to the students to illustrate how these six criteria were
exemplified in the context of telling historical stories of India, a unit they have studied
previously.
Measures
The following measures were used to assess students’ story writing and self-assessment of
the writing in both conditions.
Quality of the stories
The two stories students wrote (pre and post intervention) were evaluated for their quality
using the aforementioned rubric (six criteria) of good story writing: a good story should (1)
have a clear main thesis; (2) offer detailed examples to explain how people, particularly
children, lived their everyday life; (3) make historical facts come alive; (4) present events
and characters in a logical and connected manner; (5) teach important lessons; and (6) raise
questions for further inquiry. The same set of criteria was also used by students to self-
assess the stories they produced before and after the intervention.
To minimize bias in grading, the teacher who implemented the contrasting cases
instruction intervention and a researcher who was blind to the intervention independently
rated how well the stories met each of the six criteria on a 0–5 scale (0—not meeting the
criteria at all, 3—somewhat meeting the criteria and 5—completely meeting the criteria).
With six criteria, the maximum possible total score for a story is 30 points and the
minimum is 0. Cohen’s jwas run to determine the level of agreement between the teacher
and the researcher (j=.778, p\.0005) and the disagreements for the rating of each
criteria were resolved through discussions.
Depth of understanding of the criteria
The teacher led whole class discussions about how each of the six criteria was exemplified
in stories. For instance, the teacher would say: ‘‘A good story should have a clear main
thesis. Do you think that Story A has a main thesis? If so, which sentence(s) described the
main thesis of the story? Ok. What about Story B then? Does it have main thesis?’’ After
the teacher-led whole class discussions, each student was asked to identify examples for
how each of the six criteria was implemented in the contrasting stories or the two good
stories. The students then wrote down the examples they found in 3 95 index cards, which
were then used to guide the story writing and self-assessment of the story. Two researchers
independently coded the examples given by the students to determine the number and the
types of these examples. For each criterion, we analyzed if the contrasting case condition
had an effect on the number of examples students provided for each of the six criteria. In
addition, we also analyzed if students gave contrasting examples (e.g., examples of good
and poor implementation of the criteria) or good examples only (e.g., examples of good
implementation of the criteria).
Criteria with contrasting examples followed this general form: ‘‘A good story should
have a main thesis. In story A (good story), the story begins by saying: ‘this is a story
about…’’, but story B (poorly written story) begins by describing what has happened
without saying anything about what this story is about…’’. Each student was scored 0–6
526 X. Lin-Siegler et al.
123

such that the student received a score of 0 if they did not generate any examples for any of
the criteria. They would receive 1 if they included an example for one criterion and 6 if
they gave one example for each of the six criteria. In addition, each student was scored
dichotomously such that the student received a score of 1 if they included one contrasting
example for any of the criteria and a 0 if they did not generate any examples for any of the
criteria. This is important because research demonstrates that students tend to focus on the
positive aspects rather than the negative aspects of the work they assess (Dunning et al.
2004). Cohen’s jwas run to determine the level of agreement between the two coders
(j=.881, p\.0005) and the disagreements for the rating of each criteria were resolved
through discussions.
Quality of self-assessment
Students in both conditions were asked to individually assess their stories using a self-
assessment worksheet. The quality of students’ self-assessment was measured by two kinds
of data: (1) their self-assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the stories; and (2) the
accuracy of such assessment. Each student was asked to assess his or her own stories on a
self-assessment worksheet. This worksheet included the following questions: (1) What was
good about your story? (strengths); (2) What aspects of the story need improvement?
(weaknesses); and (3) How could you improve your story? The students specified the
strategies they would use to improve their stories.
The responses to each of the three questions were coded as either a substantive or
surface level self-assessment. Substantive self-assessment means the student included
information regarding any of the six criteria for what makes a good story. Examples of
substantive criteria include: ‘‘I have good facts about the historical time’’; ‘‘The way I
started off the story was good because I had a main idea’’; ‘‘I gave a lot of good details
about the Tang dynasty’’; ‘‘My story did not seem to have a main idea;’’ and ‘‘I should
write more about the people’’. Non-substantive means the student focused their self-
assessment on surface features of the story writing, such as the length of the story, the
spelling mistakes made, or forgetting to use words or phrases. Examples of non-substantive
criteria include ‘‘It’s long’’; or ‘‘it is good because there is no mistake in spelling’’. We
assigned a score of 1 to substantive self-assessment and 0 to non-substantive assessment.
For the third question regarding the strategies for revising the work, the students again
were coded as to whether they responded with a substantive and specific revision (e.g., I
need to explain a particular issue more deeply; I will make the story more interesting and
rich, or I will add more information to a specific part of the story) or a mechanical/non-
specific revision (e.g., I will check the spelling of the writing; I will re-read the story before
handing it in). Students were scored dichotomously for answers to each of the three
questions: a student received a score of 1 if the self-assessment for that dimension was
substantive and a 0 if not. Cohen’s jwas run to determine the level of agreement between
the two coders (j=.861, p\.0005) and the disagreements for the rating of each criteria
were resolved through discussions. In addition, we also calculated the mean number of
strategies (quantity of the strategies) students in each condition generated for improving
their story. This number exceeds 1.
With regard to the accuracy of students’ self-assessment, we examined if students’
perceptions of the quality of their work matched their actual level of quality as judged by
the teachers. Correlational analysis was performed to examine the extent to which the
students’ self-assigned scores matched the scores assigned by the teacher.
Contrasting cases and self-assessment 527
123

Results
Effects on quality of student story writing
Stories written before and after the intervention were compared to assess improvement in
writing quality. The quality of each of the two stories was evaluated according to the six
criteria for good story writing presented earlier. Repeated-measures ANOVA comparing
the two conditions over time were performed for all scores (see Table 3).
Before the intervention, there was no significant difference in the quality of the stories
between the two conditions. After the intervention, the stories produced by the contrasting
cases students were of significantly higher quality than the stories produced by the good-
cases-only students. The contrasting cases students did significantly better than good-cases-
only students in five of the six criteria: (1) utilizing a clear main thesis for their stories
[F(1,51) =41.39, p\0.001, gp
2
=0.450]; (2) making historical facts come alive by
including specific characters and events [F(1,51) =41.39, p\0.001, gp
2
=0.450]; (3)
presenting events and characters in a logical and connected manner [F(1,51) =41.39,
p\0.001, gp
2
=0.450]; (4) teaching important lessons [F(1,51) =41.39, p\0.001,
gp
2
=0.450]; and (5) raising some questions about that period of history for future
research [F(1,51) =41.39, p\0.001, gp
2
=0.450].
Effects on depth of understanding of the criteria
Depth of understanding of criteria was evaluated based on number of and types of
examples students provided. To test if the contrasting cases condition had an effect on the
number of examples students provided for each of the six criteria, an ANOVA was per-
formed. Good-cases-only students’ mean number of examples was 5.08 (SD =2.21) while
the contrasting cases students’ mean was 5.96 (SD =0.19). This difference was statisti-
cally significant [F(1,51) =10.398, p=0.043, gp
2
=0.783] suggesting that condition
did affect the number of examples provided by students. Those from the contrasting cases
condition produced more examples than those from the good-cases-only condition.
Table 3 Mean ratings of the quality of the story
Dimension Good cases only Contrasting cases
Pre Post Pre Post
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Main thesis 0.54 0.71 1.12 0.94 0.56 0.70 2.89 0.93*
Details of daily family life 2.08 0.89 0.88 1.14 2.00 0.70 1.48 1.40
Historical facts come alive 0.50 0.71 1.04 0.87 0.37 0.56 2.52 1.55*
Presenting in a logical manner 2.19 0.80 1.62 0.50 2.33 0.62 2.93 1.17*
Teaching important lessons 0.31 0.55 0.65 0.69 0.30 0.47 1.48 1.01*
Questions for further research 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.00 0.00 1.03 1.19*
All groups equal at pre-test on all dimensions
* Significant improvement for contrasting stories (p\.05)
528 X. Lin-Siegler et al.
123

The data was further analyzed to determine the content of the examples. The next
analysis determined if students gave both good and poor examples, or just good examples.
Good-cases-only students’ mean number of examples of criteria for what makes a good
story was 4.27 (SD =2.11) while the contrasting cases students’ mean was 3.00
(SD =1.30). This difference was found to be statistically significant [F(1,51) =21.337,
p=0.011, gp
2
=0.124] suggesting the students in the good-cases-only group focused
significantly more on examples of criteria that makes a well-written story relative to the
contrasting cases students. The mean number of examples of criteria for what makes a poor
story from the students in the good-cases-only group was 0.81 (SD =1.06) compared to
the contrasting cases students’ mean of 2.96 (SD =1.29). This difference was also sta-
tistically significant [F(1,51) =61.527, p\0.001, gp
2
=0.467] suggesting the con-
trasting cases students focused significantly more on poor story examples of criteria than
the students in the good-cases-only group. That is, the contrasting cases students paid more
attention to examples of the errors people usually make when writing a story than the
correct things people usually do while story writing.
Effects on student self-assessment
We next tested if using contrasting cases leads to an increase in the quality and accuracy of
students’ self-assessment.
Quality of self-assessment
Quality of self-assessment was evaluated in reference to students’ self-appraisal of their
stories’ strengths, weaknesses and strategies for improvement. Each of these were scored
as a 1 or 0 based on whether they attended to the substantive aspects or to surface-level
aspects in their self-assessment.
Good-cases-only students’ mean score for identifying strengths in their story was 0.65
(SD =0.49) while the contrasting cases students mean was 0.81 (SD =0.40). This dif-
ference was not statistically significant [F(1,51) =0.343, p=0.191] suggesting that both
groups were capable of noticing strengths in their work. Good-cases-only students’ mean
score for specifying the weaknesses in their story was 0.35 (SD =0.49). The mean of the
contrasting case group was 0.74 (SD =0.45). This difference was found to be statistically
significant [F(1, 51) =2.062, p=0.003, gp
2
=0.157] which suggests the contrasting
cases students were more capable of identifying specific and substantive areas of weak-
nesses in their stories.
The mean number of different types of strategies generated for improving their story
was 0.54 (SD =0.90) for the good-cases-only students while the contrasting cases students
mean was 1.56 (SD =0.85). This difference was statistically significant [F(1,51) =
13.702, p\0.001, gp
2
=0.259] suggesting that in general, the contrasting cases students
were more capable of coming up with different types of strategies for improving their story
compared to the good-cases-only students.
Good-cases-only students’ mean score for generating a substantive strategy for
improving their story was 0.31 (SD =0.47) while the contrasting cases students’ mean
score was 0.67 (SD =0.48). This difference was also statistically significant
[F(1,51) =1.707, p=0.008, gp
2
=0.129] suggesting that the contrasting cases students
were better able to recommend substantive strategies for improving their story than the
good-cases-only students. Finally, the score for mentioning a surface level strategy for
improving their story was analyzed. Good-cases-only students’ mean was 0.54
Contrasting cases and self-assessment 529
123

(SD =0.51) while the contrasting cases students mean was 0.41 (SD =0.50). This dif-
ference was not statistically significant [F(1,51) =0.227, p=0.349] showing that both
groups mentioned surface level strategies, such as making the story longer.
Overall, students in both conditions were able to assess the strengths of their stories.
However, in comparison to the students in the good-cases-only condition, the students in
the contrasting cases condition were more capable of identifying aspects of their stories
that needed improvement and offered substantive strategies for how to go about improving
their stories.
Accuracy of self-assessment
Accuracy of students’ self-assessment was determined by correlating students’ estimation
of their overall scores on their story and the actual overall scores they received from the
teacher. For the good-cases-only group, a negative correlation was found between the
students’ scores and the teacher’s scores (r =-0.394, N=26, p=0.047). However, for
the contrasting cases group a positive correlation was found between the students’ scores
and the teacher’s scores (r =0.407, N=27, p=0.035). This suggests that the contrasting
cases intervention improved students’ accuracy of self-assessment.
Discussion
This study is one of few efforts applying perceptual learning theories to improve academic
skills in a classroom setting. It specifically investigates effects of instruction using con-
trasting cases on middle school students’ writing and self-assessment. Results indicate that
it is possible to improve middle school students’ writing and self-assessment of their
writing when providing them with effective instructional support. In comparison to the
good-cases-only instructional condition, the contrasting cases instructional condition
produced greater improvement in (1) the quality of students’ writing, (2) the depth of
understanding of the criteria students used for subsequent self-assessments, (3) the quality
and accuracy of the assessment of their own writing and (4) the number of different
strategies proposed to conduct the revisions.
These findings support and extend previous research that provided strong evidence that
multiple, differentiated contrasting cases improved students’ understanding and perfor-
mance in mathematics, physics and business classes (e.g., Rittle-Johnson and Star 2007;
Hattikudur and Alibali 2010; Van Lehn and Van De Sande 2009). In our study, the
contrasting cases instruction in social study classes aided middle school student writing by
encouraging students to notice distinctive features that differentiate good writing from poor
writing, which they may miss without such contrasts. In addition to existing successful
writing interventions, such as strategy instruction, summarization, and peer assistance
(Graham and Perin 2007), and the use of criteria-based rubrics (e.g. Andrade et al. 2010),
the use of contrasting examples appears to be a practice that is not only beneficial for
students’ writing, but also for self-assessment of their writing.
One particularly intriguing finding is that while students in both conditions were able to
assess what was good about their stories, and what a good story should be like, the students
exposed to the contrasting cases were much better at identifying the weak features of their
writing that needed further improvement. This finding not only supports previous work
indicating a positive bias in self-assessment (Lin and Bransford 2010; Dunning et al. 2004),
530 X. Lin-Siegler et al.
123

but signifies that obtaining an accurate assessment of what’s wrong with one’s own work is
an intrinsically difficult task, one for which people often do not do spontaneously unless
explicit instructional scaffolds are offered (Bjork 1999; Dunning et al. 2004; Tsivitanidou
et al. 2011). Analyzing contrasting cases promoted transfer of student understanding of
writing criteria: they used the criteria not only in critiquing stories but also transferred that
understanding to the task of writing their own story.
We speculate that the contrasting cases provide explicit representations of well-written
and poorly written stories. Analyzing and discussing contrasting cases elicited active
comparisons and processing of the examples (e.g., Schwartz and Bransford 1998). Ana-
lyzing these contrasting examples help students to develop a concrete, yet varied and deep
understanding of the criteria for self-assessment. In our study, such active comparisons
seemed to have helped students generate the differentiated knowledge structures that
enabled them to understand deeply what specific good features to include and what specific
poor features to avoid in the story writing. This resulted in recognition of poor aspects of
writing, generation of strategies to correct them, and willingness to revise and make
improvements.
In theory, self-assessment supported by contrasting cases should benefit self-regulation.
In our study, students exposed to contrasting cases were able to recognize examples of bad
writing and produced better writing products in the end. However, we did not explicitly test
whether the ability to produce higher quality writing in the end was a result of their
conscious self-regulation due to self-assessment activity. Very few studies have examined
how the process of self-assessment enhances self-regulation in writing or learning in other
subjects. It is not yet known how an improved self-assessment facilitates self-regulation
learning processes, and particularly at what phase of the process. It is likely that engaging
in self-assessment at the planning stage may not offer as many benefits as engaging in self-
assessment after the first draft is produced. Therefore, it is important to investigate how
self-assessment training affects each of the three phases of self-regulation: planning,
execution and revision.
Limitations of the present study
There are several limitations apparent in this work. First, this investigation was accom-
plished with two 6th grade classrooms in a single school and was demonstrated with a
particular story-writing task. Findings are limited in scope to a particular task, age, and
single instance. Additional research should replicate and extend this work in an effort to
better understand how working with contrasting cases improves students’ performance in
other classes and to generalize findings to other contexts and multiple grade levels.
In addition, the measures of self-assessment developed for use in this study are in need of
further development and validation. We did not assess if students actually revised their work
as they said they would in the self-assessment. That would be a useful measure in the future.
Classroom teachers often use self-assessment measures for specific purposes. What sorts of
questions best capture students’ self-assessment, especially for use in classroom research?
Additional investigations should consider issues of validity and reliability when considering
ways to measure students’ self-assessment for use in classroom-based research.
A third limitation was the inability to disentangle the effects of classroom discussion
from the effects of the intervention. Engaging in authentic, classroom based research
creates dilemmas between researcher control and classroom authenticity. The classroom
Contrasting cases and self-assessment 531
123

cases were an integral part of the discussion, so we believe that the contrasting cases
should be understood and considered in the context of teacher implementation and class
discussion. We are not attempting to promote that using contrasting cases without
appropriate teacher input is what worked here, but that the contrasting cases used by
teachers in a manner natural for their discussion promoted the improvement in student
work and self-assessment, more so than use of only good cases in the same discussion
context did.
Future research directions
There are a number of areas ripe for further investigation. First, the fact that a simple
instructional strategy, use of contrasting cases, could produce benefits suggests the need to
research its usefulness in relation to other writing skills (e.g., expository, creative, opinion,
etc.) as well as its effect on learning in other academic domains. Examples include: does
the use of contrasting cases help students better represent and hone their understanding of
complex scientific knowledge and processes? Does the use of these kinds of cases make
students better at assessing their need for improvements and potentially create metacog-
nitive awareness in domains, such as, mathematics?
A second area for future research involves instructional concerns. These issues include
investigating when contrasting cases may be most helpful for students, what types of
students need the contrasting case instructional support the most, and the ways teachers can
best present and organize discussion around contrasting cases. Further research can better
elaborate on the variations that likely exist in self-assessment for students in different
grades and those with different levels of achievement.
Moreover, additional research is needed to address potential effects of contrasting cases
for stimulating self-regulation and metacognition. What kinds of contrasting cases improve
one’s ability to notice deep features of concepts and to accurately self-assess and revise one’s
work? Under what conditions do contrasting cases helps students better understand abstract
ideas and recognize when to use their knowledge? How transferable are they? Will students
spontaneously seek out contrasting examples/cases when attempting to learn new material?
Finally, attitudinal and motivational benefits towards subject matter as the result of
improved self-assessment skills should also be measured. Future studies could investigate
whether effective self-assessment also improves students’ self-efficacy and interest in those
subjects they are asked to self-assess. Greater self-awareness in conjunction with under-
standing of criteria of evaluation likely helps students’ attitudes and persistence. Although
not investigated here, such ideas are also worthy of study.
Implications for instructional design
A key assumption underlying contrasting cases instruction is that students learn to pick up
or notice important information in the environment (Garner 1974; Gibson 1969). Our
methodology for designing contrasting cases involves identifying and creating relevant
gradients that makes a story good by highlighting similarities and differences. Doing so
will make the important features explicit to the learner. Rather than having students
explore freely in the hope that they will generate the right information, contrasting cases
instruction aims to provide students with a framework to discover important features for
532 X. Lin-Siegler et al.
123

writing and self-assessment. Furthermore, learning goals should guide decisions on what
criteria or features to highlight in contrasting cases. Prioritization of multiple goals may
also influence how many certain features to include or highlight in the cases. For instance,
in our study, spelling correctly is not given as high priority as making the story content
interesting.
Instructional designers and teachers rarely think of using contrasting cases even though
there are apparent benefits for using them. A typical instructional approach involves
showing multiple examples of a good model. Yet, a drawback with this approach is
explained by the perceptual learning theory: learning what a thing is also depends on
learning what it is not (Gibson 1969; Schwartz and Bransford 1998). Utilizing contrasting
cases involves more than merely showing multiple examples multiple times, rather it
involves presenting different features of the concepts and helping students to compare and
contrast them in an effort to engage them in more expert-like differentiation of important
features (Schwartz and Bransford 1998). Simply providing students with contrasting cases
does not automatically produce deep understanding and self-assessment. Students will find
these different features confusing and they will not be able to know what features are
relevant and important (Schwartz et al. 2011). Students require a frame that guides their
search for deep structure understanding (Lin et al. 2005; Schwartz et al. 2011) and for
evaluating their work. It is important for teachers to direct students in searching for
important patterns in the cases and, moreover, to guide students to relate concrete ideas in
the contrasting cases to abstract criteria.
Conclusion
Perceptual learning theories originated by Gibson and Gibson (1955) have been tested in
lab settings, and the findings are consistently robust, demonstrating effects on discrimi-
nating sensory material. Yet, the potential for applying perceptual learning theories to
academic learning and skills in a classroom setting remain largely untapped. Using con-
trasting cases is an innovative instructional approach to improve writing and self-assess-
ment of one’s writing. Specifically, highlighting good and poor features of writing and
using criteria to guide the discussions of these features enhance students’ ability to identify
specific areas for future improvement. This approach is simple and promising: Instructional
materials may be created that utilize contrasting cases and can be adapted for a range of
grade levels and subject areas. Doing so has the potential to improve students’ under-
standing of academic material as well as promote self-assessment of their learning.
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Xiaodong Lin is interested in motivation, instructional design and science learning
David Shaenfield is interested in argumentation, science education and instructional design
Anastasia D. Elder is interested in self-assessment, instructional design, science learning, and middle level
students
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