Perceived assessement style and learning motivation
| Author | E. Cocorada - M.R. Luca - M. Pavalache-Ilie |
| Position | Dep. of Psychology, Transilvania University of Brasov |
| Pages | 85-92 |
Page 85
Evaluation is a component of the teaching activity having pedagogical functions, such as the fixing teaching process, regulating students' learning and influencing their personalities. At the same time the evaluation has social functions, such as ensuring formal validation of the knowledge/competence and establishment of social safety by a fair hierarchy of the competences (Figari, 2006). Evaluation is never totally rational (Vial, 2006) it has controllable and incontrollable determinants configured in a particular evaluative style which is a component of the learning environment.
Pedagogical practices of teachers influence students' motivation; the structure of the goals proposed to students could be focused on competence and mastery or on performance, but only the pursuit of competence and mastery is associated with the involvement of the student in learning (Galand, 2006). An educational environment which is not focused on external rewards, punishments and pressure and which proposes moderate difficulty tasks facilitates the adoption of mastery goals and the development of intrinsic motivation. There is a relationship between the structure of goals proposed to students and the teacher-student relationship: performance goals induce feelings of threat, inequity, tensions, competition, but there are differences of gender, age, type of school in this respect (Galand, Philippot & Frenay, 200).
Modern approaches of the learning motivation (Pintrich & Schunk, 1996; Pintrich, 1999) focused on three generalPage 86types of motivation: the self-efficacy beliefs (judgments of one's capabilities to do the academic task), the task value beliefs (beliefs about the importance of interest in, and value of the task), and goal orientations (whether the focus is on mastery and learning of the task, grades or extrinsic reasons for doing the task, or relative ability in relation to social comparisons with other students).
Viau (2000) uses a model of motivation encompassing the following dimensions: perceived value of the activity, perceived of self-competency in learning tasks, perceived task control, persistence, cognitive involvement, performance, and choice of activity. Amabile (1996) uses a bi dimensional model of activity: intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, with four subscales, two intrinsic (Pleasure and Challenge) and two extrinsic (Acknowledgement and Reward).
Assessment style and its implications
The assessment style is defined (Cocorada, 2004) as a pattern of knowledge, attitudes and procedures coherently expressed at behavioural level as an effect of the principles, norms, and methods of evaluation which are adopted by the educator/ teacher in a particular situation. The author proposes a bi- dimensional model of the evaluation styles, with the axis: orientation of the evaluation (towards persons vs. norms) and level of exigency (high/ over-particular vs. low/ lenient). It results four styles: normative, formative, popular and conventional. Teachers try intentionally to adapt their evaluation behaviour to educational aims, establishing and consequently developing the evaluation strategies. For example, in the frame of formative evaluation strategy, teacher considers the needs, difficulties and the potential of student, while in the summative evaluation strategy he considers norms and standards in order to ensure the comparability of results.
The normative style - The main guiding values in evaluation are "rules", "work" and "necessity". Teacher classifies students, gives frequent or difficult evaluation tasks, and maintains stable assessment criteria and a high "cutting point". He strictly penalizes errors and considers performance as resulting from student's effort and involvement. He shows emotional neutrality and poor empathy. For him, student is rather labelled by grades than perceived as a person.
The formative style - The main guiding values in evaluation are "liberty" and "responsibility". The teacher considers the needs of the students, adapts the object- tives, has flexible standards, has in view the progress of the students, but is not lenient. The cutting point is kept high, but he encourages the students to get over it.
The popular style - Teacher tends towards a relativism of values; he presents himself as a generous person. He tries not to be stressful, avoids difficult objectives, gives easy evaluation tasks, the cutting point is kept low. He/she diminishes the importance of errors and considers results depending on circumstances. He is empathic, very popular with students, overestimates them, requires less effort, and avoids conflicts with students or their families. The cosy climate covers on the underachievement of objectives.
The conventional style - Teacher focuses on conventions such as syllabus, objectives, but standards are of medium importance. He makes evaluations because it is necessary in order to avoid conflicts with school authority or students' parents. The evaluation tasks are of medium difficulty, with rigid criteria and simple evaluation technique. He/she shows poor empathy and does not make personalized assessments. He/she avoids encouraging students too much and feels good when succeeds to be correct in giving rewards and punishments.Page 87
According to Galand (2006) and Galand, Philippot & Frenay (2006) the structure of goals proposed to students and the teacher- students relationship influences the learning motivation of students and is involved in generating educational climate. The teacher's assessment style plays a key role in this mechanism.
The Lewis's theory (1947) on the perceptual field identifies a connection between students' perception (climate) and their learning performances (apud Seeman & Seeman, 1976). The dynamics of student's learning leads to readiness for activity as determined by the type and force of the motive, expectancy and incentive value of acting, all put together in a multiplicative relationship (Atkinson and Feather, 1966).
The relationship between the evaluator and evaluated student is moderated by the student's perception of the teacher in the evaluation situation. Even there is a "core of truth" in social cognition (Yserbit & Schadron, 2002) the perceptions of the students are inevitably distorted by individual and situational factors. Thus, the same teacher gets different labels and issues various reactive attitudes.
The general objective of the research is to identify the relationship between perceived assessment styles and the students' learning motivation.
After ensuring of the confidentiality of their answers, the students were asked to fill three questionnaires - the first concerning the perceptions on the evaluation style of the English teacher, and the last two concerning their learning motivation. All participants received in exchange for their participation a written feedback consisting in descriptions of their motivational characteristics.
Four subordinate hypotheses were derived:
H1. The perception of the teacher's assessment style varies according to the motivational dominant themes in students.
H2. The perception of the teacher's assessment style varies according to the grades students received on the topic.
H3. The asserted learning motivation varies according to the grades students received on the topic.
H4. The learning motivation of the students varies according to gender.
The instruments used in the research were the following:
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Perceived Assessment Style Inventory -PASI (Cocorada, 2004) - a set of 42 items consisting in forced choice between 2 opposite answers, describing behaviours specific to each of the poles of the assessment dimensions: "Orientation of the evaluation" (towards persons vs. towards norms) and "Level of exigency" (high/over-particular vs. low/ lenient).
The...
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