Inquiry Project: Assessment and progression: How can we change assessment to better a student's motivation towards academics

Assessment and Motivation

Formative assessment techniques to support student motivation and achievement

Kathleen Cauley, James Mcmillan (2010)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00098650903267784

Assessment effects student motivation. The paper covers five key practices teachers can use to gather information about student understanding providing feedback and enable students to set and attain learning goals. The key parts are a cycle. It can begin from student’s motivation, to student engagement, work, and achievement, to ongoing assessment, feedback, and then instructional correctives by teachers and students. Support is important to keep student’s motivation and goal towards their achievements. Supporting students promotes improvement and progress, which provides students to adopt learning mastery goals.

Classroom Assessment, student motivation, and achievement in high school social studies classes

 Susan Brookhart, Daniel Durkin(2003)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248940582_Classroom_Assessment_Student_Motivation_and_Achievement_in_High_School_Social_Studies_Classes

Four assessments in each course from a teacher-researchers teaching load were sampled. Sample sizes was about 96 students. It was found that student performance assessments were connected to productive student’s goal orientations and earning strategies. Students were interviewed and valued the sharing and learning of ideas from their colleagues. Group motivation spurs the idea for team based learning, and group assessment instead of individual assessment.

Standards Based Grading

Grading for Understanding – Standards Based Grading

Tod Zimmerman (2017)

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1124208

Standards based grading is about “Mastering learning objectives” rather than “earning points”. Mistakes are apart of the learning process, much like how to learn a game is to play, learn, and practice. They should be rewarded for trying to fix their past mistakes, not for attempting it once and accepting their fate. Reassessment is practice, and practice is a form of learning. Grades should be determined by the number of learning objectives completed by the end of the semester.

Questioning points and percentages: Standards-based Grading in Higher Education

 Tom Buckmiller, Randal Peters, Jerrid Kruse

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/87567555.2017.1302919?journalCode=vcol20

Standard based grading (SBG) case used in university. Grading practices in university tend to be traditional and commonly used world wide. Again, students thought of schooling as just earning points like a game and that is the end goal, not to learn course content. Students that worked under an SBG took ownership of their learning. SBG provides an opportunity for students to reflect on their previous knowledge.

The standards for academics’ standards-based assessment practices

 Dennis Alonzo, Negin Mirriahi, and Chris Davison (2018)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602938.2018.1521373?journalCode=caeh20

There has been a need for improving learning and teaching. The paper developed a tool based on evidence from literature. Using their tool and a sample of 410 students who wanted to engage in self assessment, they found a “Six Factor Model” that was “most parsimonious among other models”. The framework is based on Standard based grading, and I think It would be interesting to do a deeper analysis of their paper.

Peer Assessment

Peer Assessment

Kieth J. Topping (2009)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234718247_Peer_Assessment

Peer assessment provides evaluation levels from equal status learners. Students can learn different perspectives of mistakes by exploring each others’ understandings. Writing, oral presentations, portfolios, testing performance are all possible methods for students to evaluate. The paper mainly covers formative assessment but also states that assessment could be summative as well, so it does encourage to investigate other assessment methods. Formative assessment using a peer to peer method also helps develop personal and professional skills, as students will find it challenging to verbally explain their understanding. I find it a great learning method to be able to teach your understandings to your colleagues.

Peer Learning and Assessment

David Boud (1999)

To assist with course content, students meeting in groups can help teach a variety of learning outcomes. Collaboration with others can deepen their understanding. Also studying with colleagues can develop their responsibility for their own education. The abstract acknowledges a problem of traditional grading methods, as it values individual achievement, and collaborative efforts is akin to cheating. Inappropriate assessment practices also form competition and prevent a more supportive learning environment, which is what modern educational curriculums are leaning towards.

Peer feedback: the learning element of peer Assessment

Ngar-fun Liu & David Carless (2006)

https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510600680582

Paper investigates the relation of peer feedback and the assessment process. Studying the student rational can be used to enhance student learning. What is most fascinating is students resist peer assessment using grades and rarely assess each other. The paper goes deeper into why students resist the peer assessment process. It also covers strategies for promoting peer feedback and encouraging students to be more engaging with peer to the peer to peer learning experience. However, if the classrooms and learning cultures value individual achievement over collaborative approaches, the peer-to-peer learning and assessment may not be effective.