Abstract:
Student self-assessment is a popular practice for enhancing student empowerment in the assessment
process. However, in recent times various writers have questioned whether the practice of
student self-assessment automatically enhances student autonomy. Some writers have even
warned that students' participation in the assessment process may discipline, rather than empower,
students. How can student self-assessment be practised in a way that empowers its
students instead of discip1ining or controlling them? It is argued that student empowerment can
only be realized if the ways that power is exercised over students in self-assessment practices are
first understood. This paper examines the issues of power that underlie student self-assessment
practices and analyses how different notions' of power enhance or undermine student empowerment.
The notion of the teacher's unilateral power as the basis for student self-assessment is
critically examined against three contrasting notions of power in student self-assessment: sovereign
power, epistemological power and disciplinary power.
