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Formative assessment has been suggested as a means of supporting studentmotivation. However, empirical studies have shown mixed effects of formativeassessment interventions on students’ motivation, making it necessary to understandthe mechanisms underlying these effects. We analyzed a formative classroompractice implemented by a 10th-grade first-language teacher during 7 months.Teacher logs, classroom observations and a teacher interview were used to collectdata for characterizing the formative assessment practice. Changes in students’satisfaction regarding the basic psychological needs of perceived autonomy,competence and relatedness, as well as changes in student motivation manifestingas engagement in learning activities and autonomous types of motivation, weremeasured by pre- and post-questionnaires in the intervention class and fourcomparison classes. Since the intraclass correlation values ICC(1) and ICC(2)were low, we treated the comparison classes as one group and t-tests were usedin the significance testing of the differences in changes in psychological needssatisfaction and motivation between the intervention class and the comparisonclasses. Path analysis was conducted to investigate whether a possible influenceof the intervention on autonomous motivation and behavioral engagementwould be mediated by basic psychological needs satisfaction. The analysis ofthe classroom practice in the intervention class identifies that both teacher andstudents were proactive agents in formative assessment processes. The analysisof the quantitative data shows that students’ psychological needs satisfactionincreased more in the intervention class than in the comparison classes, and thatthis needs satisfaction mediated an effect on students’ behavioral engagementand autonomous motivation.

Teachers’ formative feedback provides motivational and cognitive support for student engagement in learning and raises their achievement. Because feedback arises from assessment, teacher conceptions of both assessment and feedback matter to how feedback is practised. This study determines how teacher conceptions of assessment and feedback are linked to each other and to self-reported practices in a repeated measures survey 18 months apart. All factors in the Swedish Teachers Conceptions of Assessment inventory predicted all six Conceptions of Feedback, which fully mediated influence of assessment conceptions on teachers’ self-reported formative feedback practices. Two conceptions of feedback (i.e., feedback improves learning, and students ignore feedback) were important predictors of teachers’ practice, and these feedback conceptions were predicted by the corresponding conceptions of assessment (i.e., it improves learning and it is ignored by students). The results imply that teacher formative feedback practices depend on an improvement-oriented conception of assessment as a prior belief. 

In the present study we investigate one 7th-grade mathematics teacher’s eight-month long implementation of a comprehensive multi-approach formative assessment practice. Based on an analysis of classroom observations, interviews and written teacher logbooks, this classroom practice is described in detail to illustrate how multi-approach formative assessments may be enacted in practice. Furthermore, based on the same data, we identify characteristics of formative assessment practices that have been argued to influence student motivational characteristics that affect motivation manifested as behavioural engagement and autonomous types of motivation. We also demonstrate that while the students in the two control classes (n = 9 in both classes) decreased their engagement in learning activities and became less autonomous in their motivation during this period, the students in the intervention class (n = 14) became more engaged and did not become less autonomous in their motivation.

It is well-known that a key to promoting students’ mathematics learning is to provide opportunities for problem solving and reasoning, but also that maintaining such opportunities in student–teacher interaction is challenging for teachers. In particular, teachers need support for identifying students’ specific difficulties, in order to select appropriate feedback that supports students’ mathematically founded reasoning without reducing students’ responsibility for solving the task. The aim of this study was to develop a diagnostic framework that is functional for identifying, characterising, and communicating about the difficulties students encounter when trying to solve a problem and needing help from the teacher to continue the construction of mathematically founded reasoning. We describe how we reached this aim by devising iterations of design experiments, including 285 examples of students’ difficulties from grades 1–12, related to 110 tasks, successively increasing the empirical grounding and theoretical refinement of the framework. The resulting framework includes diagnostic questions, definitions, and indicators for each diagnosis and structures the diagnostic process in two simpler steps with guidelines for difficult cases. The framework therefore has the potential to support teachers both in eliciting evidence about students’ reasoning during problem solving and in interpreting this evidence.

Formative assessment (FA) has been shown to have the power to improve student achievement.Therefore, many professional development (PD) initiatives have been carried out to support teachers to develop their FA practice. However, accomplishing such practices have been proven difficult. Among factors that are important for outcomes of PDs are teachers’ beliefs and conceptions. This study examines the effects of a PD in FA on teachers’ conceptions of assessment and feedback, and self-reported feedback practices. These variables were measured through a survey in the beginning and at the end of the PD. Differences between the intervention and a control group were examined at both time points using factor analytic methods and with t-tests on change scores. For the intervention group, significant positive differences were found in both the means of important conceptions and in the strength of relationships, while this was not the case for the control group.

The purpose of this intervention study was to develop and evaluate a support model for teachers, designed to assist them in diagnosing students’ (age 16–19 years) difficulties and providing feedback to support students’ mathematical problem solving. Reporting on an iteration in a design research project, the results showed that the support helped the teachers to provide less procedural information and instead help students construct solutions for themselves. Constraints in achieving this included the nature of some tasks, difficulties in making reasonable diagnoses, and students’ inability to communicate their difficulties.

Understanding teachers’ conceptions of assessment is a key objective in supporting assessment practices that lead to improved learning outcomes. Thus, inventories capable of identifying teachers’ assessment conceptions are important. The Teachers Conceptions of Assessment (TCoA) inventory was an early and influential measure of teacher assessment conceptions, but replication studies have shown that the model may be affected by policy and practice context. In the present study, a Swedish adaptation of the TCoA was administered twice, 18 months apart. A sample of 249 teachers were matched across the 2 time-points and their self-reported scores were analysed with confirmatory factor analysis and invariance testing. With good correspondence to the data, six of the nine factors in the TCoA were completely replicated and one factor was partially replicated. The model had sufficient similarity between time points to permit mean score comparisons, which were largely equivalent between times. The study indicates that the Swedish Teacher Conceptions of Assessment adaptation can be used reliably in Swedish primary and lower secondary schools as measure of teacher conceptions of the uses of assessment.

Research has shown that formative assessment can have large positive effects on student achievement, but the effects vary substantially and are not always positive. In addition, the underlying mechanisms responsible for the learning effects are not well understood. We present a framework developed to support research efforts to identify these mechanisms. The framework includes formative assessment processes as well as students’ learning processes, defines and exemplifies the term mechanisms in relevant contexts, indicates possible mechanisms, and identifies aspects that require further research to characterise and explain the mechanisms through which formative assessment affects student achievement. Finally, we exemplify how the framework may be used to design studies capable of providing the robust evidence required for drawing conclusions about the mechanisms.

Behavioral engagement is a key determinant of students’ learning. Hence, knowledge about mechanisms affecting engagement is crucial for educators and stakeholders. Self-determination theory (SDT) offers a framework to understand one of these mechanisms. However, extant studies mostly consider only parts of SDT’s theoretical paths from basic psychological need satisfaction via regulations to student engagement. Studies that investigate the full model are rare, especially in mathematics, and results are inconclusive. Moreover, constructs are often merged in ways that may preclude detailed understanding. In this study, we used structural equation modeling to test several hypothesized paths between the individual variables that make up higher-order constructs of need satisfaction, regulations, and behavioral engagement. Satisfaction of the need for competence had a dominating effect on engagement, both directly and via identified regulation. Similarly, satisfaction of the need for relatedness predicted identified regulation, that in turn predicted engagement. Satisfaction of the need for autonomy predicted intrinsic regulation as expected but, in contrast to theory, was also positively associated with controlled motivation (external and introjected regulation). Neither intrinsic nor controlled regulation predicted engagement. Theoretical and method-related reasons for this unexpected pattern are discussed, as well as implications for research and teaching.

The study investigates one mathematics teacher’s implementation of formative assessment and its effects on students’ self-regulated learning (SRL). A questionnaire administered before and after the eight-month long intervention shows a significant effect, compared to two control classes, on students’ motivational beliefs involved in SRL. Qualitative data shows a notable enhancement of the students’ SRL behavior in the classroom. Analysis of the teacher’s implemented formative assessment shows a practice integrating several aspects of formative assessment, and provides empirical evidence of what formative assessment with large effects on students’ SRL may look like and how it fits with models of SRL development.