The role of self-assessment in the facilitation of entrepreneurial competencies in learners who are studying on entrepreneurial learning courses in England

This study explored whether self-assessment facilitates the process of generating entrepreneurial competencies in learners who were studying on entrepreneurial learning courses in England. The focus was on how learners experience personal growth and transformation through the learning process and how this could be demonstrated through self-assessment practices. This was achieved by looking at the cognitive processes that a learner needs to engage with in order to conduct selfassessments and the relationship between these and self-regulation. The research was positioned within a holistic philosophy of education, where the learners’ physical, personal, social, emotional, and spiritual well-being, as well as cognitive aspects of learning, are equally important. This was a qualitative study framed by an interpretivist philosophical position. The chosen methods were semi-structured interviews of eight educators and seven learners and document analysis, which provide an understanding of the phenomenon by looking at how the participants interpret the events based on their individual thought processes. This research contributes to our understanding of self-assessment practices on entrepreneurial learning courses and the impact that this could have on higher education more broadly. This study made an original contribution to the knowledge by increasing our understanding of selfassessment through the production of new information by identifying a typology of the forms of self-assessment that learners participate in on entrepreneurial learning courses. The typology identifies the skills that the learner requires in order to complete the self-assessments, outlining the benefits for learners who participate in self-assessments, discussing the factors that contribute to a successful selfassessment, and describing the role of the educator as a facilitator in the process of self-assessment.