It is supported by empirical evidences that lower achieving students tend to
predict and evaluate their own academic performance less accurately than those
who are better in their studies. Former studies have also found that low performers
generally overestimate while high performers regularly underestimate their
performance. A better knowledge on this phenomenon is useful for both educators
and researchers of education clarifying that less good skills and/or weaker abilities
are only a part of these students' handicap. Another serious issue is that they
are unaware about the previous problems. After briefly reviewing the empirical
literature the current paper tests the above mentioned hypotheses on two small
samples of business students (N = 28 and 35). It is supported only for calculation
type exercises that better performers are also predicting and evaluating their test
results more accurately. For multiple choice questions this effect is insignificant.
With the only exception on the pre-examination estimation of the multiple choice test results in case of the bachelor human resource management course higher achieving students tend to overestimate their own results less than their lower achieving fellows. For calculation results only, a lower accuracy in both prediction and post-examination evaluation and a higher tendency to overvalue their performance are found for male students compared to female learners. In multiple choice results no difference between the sexes was found in the two analyzed examinations
