Abstract:
Economies and jurisdictions differ in the kinds of assessment they practice, yet within each context the dominant assumption is that assessment contributes to learning. When stu-dents are formally tested the acts of preparing for, participating in, and receiving results pro-duce learning. Students acquire new knowledge as they prepare and reinforce knowledge they were previously exposed to. Seeing test items triggers memory and scored results can reinforce learning and correct errors. Responses to assessment may be automatic, but they also require attention and effort to overcome deficiencies. Self-regulation of learning requires the hard work of engaging in growth; that is, fac-ing difficulties in one’s own learning and overcoming such challenges. In contrast, those who seek to avoid the information or the work about deficiencies are on a self- or ego-protective pathway. This paper examines international research focused specifically on student concep-tions of assessment to ask the question: Does assessment trigger self-regulatory responses? The evidence is consistent. Students who endorse the idea that assessment and feed-back inform them as to areas they need to work on tend to do better and engage in better learning behaviours. In contrast, those who think assessments can be ignored or are bad, those who think they are measures of external factors, and those who focus on the social or affec-tive dimensions tend to not do as well as those explicitly committed to growth. Research with Chinese and Asian students who are learning in high-stakes examination contexts consistently exhibit self-regulation through compliance with assessment processes. Assessment as learning already takes place because of the meaning attached to it.
