This paper present first experiences with a LMS based self-assessment approach of pre-service teachers in vocational educational training (VET). The study is to be understood as a teaching-based research approach. It started in fall 2019. Teaching these students (n= 28) which do have just 10 lectures (each between 4-6 h) beside their own teaching-practice, the need of a stronger individual based feedback became obvious. The classes taught, already comprise feedback by graded mandatory (3) and not mandatory assignments (5) during the semester. Anyhow, the students expressed the need for more feedback related to their accomplishment of the given learning-outcomes (ILO) defined in the course description. These ILO's were implemented in the syllabus.

Even if one could get the impression that the current practice of documenting and reporting on students’ individual learning activities is strongly increasing - it unfortunately seems shrinking towards a rather instrumental approach instead of supporting better learning. This excessive use might develop a kind of “iron cage”, neglecting the proper meaning of feedback, and assessment for learning purposes (Gjøsæter, 2011). One knows that feedback and feedback tools are not a guarantee for better learning. The effectiveness of the feedback depends on how the feedback is perceived (Ferguson, 2011) and used (Grossman et al., 2009). This will have an impact on students' (meta-) cognition and self-regulation (Brady et al., 2013). Within this paper we show an example a current, explorative research project, on how self-assessment as a form of formative assessment can contribute to student learning in Higher Education. We stress the importance of feedback opportunities integrated into the learning process (Engh, 2011; Hattie & Timperley, 2007). To enable self-assessment, we make use of digital tools. The paper's research questions are therefore:

(1) How can self-assessment considered as formative assessment support learning in preservice-teacher (VET)-training?

(2) What are the students' reflections and attitudes on this self-assessment appoach?

By using an approach of self-chosen self-assessment we let the students steer the amount of feedback and reporting on their own learning and their own feedback needs.

In spring 2020 we will, beside the already collected data on a survey and the self-assessment protocols of the students themselves, conduct focus groups interviews to understand better what the students perception on this tool and the course is as well as we will use these as a platform for improving the self-assessment tool. One can say that these teaching-based research has now become shaped by ideas of action-based research. We make use of a symmetric communication, as K. Lewin (1946) proposed, with the pre-service students e.g. by focus group interviews as a basis for reflective teaching.

In the fall term'19 we introduced and applied this self-assessment approach (students' own perception on their achieved learning objectives) the very first time. These LOs need to be operationalized or specified on a level which make them approachable for the students and teachers in their learning practice. Besides 3 obligatory assignments, students can work on 5 additional non-mandatory tasks related to the LO as a learning support for successfully fulfilling the course. A midterm and final evaluation with specific questions towards the tool will be conducted to measure students’ perceptions. Beside the fully structured questionnaire, in Spring 2020, we have conduct post focus-group interviews to receive deeper insights on how the students experience the tool. Students’ digital activities can be analyzed quantitively by the learning analytics feature provided by the LMS. Qualitatively, students can individually be surveilled by their own documentation and reporting on the task they had to conduct or to deliver.

Expected results. The results are promising but need more analysis and triangulation. The preliminary data have individually shown a decreasing or u-curve shape by the students self-assessed learning results (ILO). The students are using the tool 2-4(6) times per semester. The use of the tool is not mandatory, but students were informed during the first lectures that this tool is added to the learning platform. We expect a clearer picture on the self-assessment ‘curve (mean and individually) adding the results of spring term’20. Moreover, we will add the focus group interviews to receive a deeper understanding on the students’ experiences and attitude in addition to the questionnaire. The prilimary anaysis of the focus group interview shows that the active use of the concepts learned on SRL has lead to a more concoius application and a deeper understanding.

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