Formative Assessment Techniques to Support Student Motivation and Achievement
Abstract
Formative assessment can have a powerful impact on student motivation and achievement. This article discusses five key practices that teachers can use to gather important information about student understanding, provide feedback to students, and enable students to set and attain meaningful learning goals. Each of the techniques can enhance student motivation as well as achievement.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Teachers often use traditional forms of teacher-graded assessment to motivate, support and cajole students.
“For example, on a personal level, teachers will often use traditional forms of teacher-graded assessment to motivate, support and cajole students (Cauley & McMillan, 2010;Harlen, 2012).”
From Assessment in the age of artificial intelligence (2022) · cites this paper as Cauley & McMillan, 2010
Cites
Assessment and Classroom Learning
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998) · Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice · doi:10.1080/0969595980050102 · Cited by 8,152 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Research has accumulated that shows a positive relationship between formative classroom assessment and student motivation and achievement on both classroom and large-scale assessments (Brookhart 1997, 2007; Black and Wiliam 1998a; McMillan 2004).”
Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation.
Ames, C. (1992) · Journal of Educational Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-0663.84.3.261 · Cited by 6,468 · see citing works
Self-Efficacy and Academic Motivation
Schunk, D. H. (1991) · Educational Psychologist · doi:10.1080/00461520.1991.9653133 · Cited by 4,292 · see citing works
Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems
Sadler, D. R. (1989) · Instructional Science · doi:10.1007/bf00117714 · Cited by 4,285 · see citing works
Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2010) · Phi Delta Kappan · doi:10.1177/003172171009200119 · Cited by 4,231 · see citing works
Working inside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning in the Classroom
Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2004) · Phi Delta Kappan · doi:10.1177/003172170408600105 · Cited by 1,323 · cited 2× · see citing works
“They can also learn to self-assess from models provided by teachers (Black and Wiliam 1998b; Sadler 1989; Chappuis 2005) and by practicing peer assessment (Black et al. 2004; Leahy et al. 2005).”
Effects of no feedback, task-related comments, and grades on intrinsic motivation and performance.
Butler, R., & Nisan, M. (1986) · Journal of Educational Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-0663.78.3.210 · Cited by 305 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Task-specific comments influence students’ interest and commitment more positively than either grades or praise (Butler and Nisan 1986).”
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Assessment in the age of artificial intelligence
Swiecki, Z., Khosravi, H., Chen, G., Martinez-Maldonado, R., Lodge, J. M., Milligan, S., Selwyn, N., & Gašević, D. (2022) · Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.1016/j.caeai.2022.100075 · Cited by 409 · see citing works
Kippers, W. B., Wolterinck, C. H. D., Schildkamp, K., Poortman, C. L., & Visscher, A. J. (2018) · Teaching and Teacher Education · doi:10.1016/j.tate.2018.06.015 · Cited by 119 · see citing works
- Authors
- Cauley, K. M., & McMillan, J. H.
- Affiliations
- Virginia Commonwealth University (US)
- ORCID
- McMillan, James H.
- Venue
- The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2010-01
- Volume
- 83
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-6
- ISSN
- 0009-8655 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-912X
- OpenAlex
- W1986001389
- Cited by
- 329
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 32.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Clearing House A Journal of Educational Strategies Issues and Ideas (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Student Assessment and Feedback
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational and Psychological Assessments
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
- Keywords
- formative assessment, student motivation, academic performance, feedback, learning objectives, student understanding, classroom assessment practices
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
