American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs speaks of self-actualisation as the ultimate level of motivation. He identified five needs: physiological (food, clothing), safety (job security), love and belonging needs (friendship, socialisation), self-esteem, and self-actualisation. You compete with yourself to reach perfection at the stage of self-actualisation. It is the final stage of one’s growth. In self-actualisation, you grow by identifying your own milestones and achieving them one by one. No one needs to tell you what to do and how to do it. You assess your own progress and plan your professional development as you strive for various accomplishments. Neeraj Chopra and P.V. Sindhu are individuals who have dedicated themselves to self-evaluation for the sake of self-actualisation. They evaluate their performance, identify weaknesses, get trained by coaches, and move to the next tournament.
Motivation to grow
Self-evaluation comes from an internal motivation to grow from point A to point B to point C and reach heights beyond one’s current capacity. It requires ongoing introspection and evaluation of one’s academic/ professional strengths and weaknesses. It requires recognising one’s own achievements and failings at any level and identifying the steps needed to reach the next level. Self-evaluation is best done by writing strengths and failings as in a balance sheet.
For example, Neeraj Chopra might write: “I could clear X metres with the javelin throw, but I want to clear X + 1 metre to win in the next tournament. For that, I need to put in five hours to learn additional skills and strategies. I also need to develop greater stamina etc. by taking the following steps.”
Can students evaluate themselves? Yes, they can. The method they can use is to write their self- assessment like this:
i. I used to solve Maths problems correctly, but now I wish to solve Physics and Maths problems correctly.
ii. Three things I have learnt in the last four months are to draw up a study schedule to revise the basics and work on exercises regularly.
iii. A method that has helped me learn better is associating a picture with every concept.
iv. My strategy to remember my points in the exam is to make an acronym of the first letter of all the concepts and memorise it.
Advantages
Self-evaluation has many benefits. It is important to develop the art early for further actualisation. For instance, it helps you review your performance objectively without blaming others for your failings. It enables you to learn independently and think critically about your present levels of performance. With self-evaluation, you can evaluate your progress, skills, and development and monitor improvement. It can help you identify gaps in your knowledge, skills and mental make-up, and work towards refining them for perfection.
Consider the case of Hanif, who attended lectures and studied regularly. He was confident that he would get a first-class in his graduation. He was studying Psychology among other subjects and had mastered the subject to the point he could answer the entire question paper if asked to. Yet, he missed his first-class by seven marks because of a foolish mistake made during his exam. He analysed why he had scored lowest in Psychology. He found that, to show off his knowledge, he had answered a question wrongly, even though he knew the right answer. Five minutes to closing time, he felt he had made a mistake but suppressed the thought and completed the paper. Had he cancelled the wrong answer and written the main points with a diagram and examples, he would have easily cleared the subject.
Upon evaluating his performance and personality, he realised he had a tendency to act impulsively, rush into decisions, and forget to double-check his work before turning it in. In order to improve his performance, he promised himself to practise patience, select questions carefully, and provide accurate responses. He worked on himself and attained his goal of getting a first-class in his Master’s. Hanif kept competing with himself to improve his performance. In the years that followed, he became a famous researcher in Psychology.
The writer is former Professor of English, IIT Bombay. ceogiit@gmail.com
Published - October 14, 2023 02:11 pm IST
