Grade perceptions of students in chemistry coursework at all levels

Various reasons are attributed to poor student performance in physical science courses such as lack of motivation, lack of ability, and/or the overall difficulty of these courses. One overlooked reason is a lack of self-awareness as to preparation level. Through a study over a two-year period, students at all levels (freshman through M.S.) of a chemistry program were surveyed and asked to self-report predictions of their score on examinations. At all levels, strong evidence of the Kruger-Dunning effect was seen where higher performing students tended to underpredict their examination scores while the lowest performing students tended to grossly overpredict their scores.