Results

__ Self-confidence at the Beginning of the Unit __ __ Self-confidence at the End of the Unit __
 * What I found out **
 * 13% had low confidence
 * 50% had some confidence
 * 37% had good confidence.
 * 5% had low confidence
 * 27% had some confidence
 * 68% had good confidence

The median at the beginning of the unit was ‘some confidence’ while the median at the end of the unit was ‘good confidence’ which is a solid improvement. I found that the students who scored themselves as less confident were more accurate with their self-assessment using the inquiry rubric than the students with more confidence. Most of the confident students scored themselves one stage higher on the assessment rubric than I did, so the inter-rater reliability between teacher and student of the rubric was low.

I planned to introduce one tool (the inquiry assessment rubric) that was designed to promote student decision-making in their inquiry-based learning. I ultimately ended up introducing three tools (the inquiry assessment rubric, the research planner and the note-taking and note-making sheet) at different points, in direct response to the students’ need for more specific information about what each step involved. Only then could they make the decisions about their next steps themselves.

Discussion
I have discovered that the less experienced students are with a particular pedagogy, the more explicit scaffolding needs to be used to support the process. I also discovered that students are good judges of when they have enough information to be getting on with their learning, they like to make their own decisions about their next steps, and this builds self-confidence regardless of actual improvements in assessed learning outcomes. I felt this was important: self confidence in a skill can improve separate to any identified increases in achievement.

I believe that rubrics alone do not provide enough information for inexperienced students to independently know what their next steps are in an inquiry-based learning unit because they need to be taught how to go about inquiry, as well as how to qualitatively assess the individual skills. Therefore, the answer to the study question is: I can use a rubric as part of my toolbox of formative assessment strategies that I will match quantitatively and qualitatively with the prior knowledge, experience and learning needs of each group of students.

=**What do I need to learn now?** = I am left wondering: is self confidence a prerequisite for learning? Do students need to believe that they can learn in order to learn? And does it improve the rate of progress or depth of learning a student can achieve? How do I effectively plan to build their self-confidence?