Experienced academics' emotions related to assessment

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the emotions higher education teachers associate with assessment and the factors in their teaching environment that triggered these emotions. As a starting point, Frenzel's model of teacher emotions and Pekrun's Control-Value Theory (CVT) of achievement emotions were used. The sample consisted of 16 experienced and pedagogically advanced teachers who participated in semi-structured interviews. After abductive content analyses, both positive and negative emotions were detected corresponding to Frenzel's and Pekrun's models. The main sources of emotions were validity of assessment, assessment methods, pedagogical development and assessment culture. This preliminary study indicates that assessment evokes both positive and negative emotions, and that validity of assessment is a prominent issue in evoking these emotions. Pedagogical training should deal with emotions and their regulation in assessment to help teachers in higher education to cope with negative emotions.

University students’ negative emotions in a computer-based examination: the roles of trait test-emotion, prior test-taking methods and gender

“…Tests and examinations often represent the most significant evaluative factors of students' grades across subjects and are critical determinants of their goals and self-worth, as well as academic and professional success (Zohar 1998;Pekrun et al 2004Lim et al 2020Myyry et al 2020). It is therefore no surprise that negative emotions, such as anxiety and frustration, are often the focus of research examining emotions in examination-taking contexts.…”

“…It is therefore no surprise that negative emotions, such as anxiety and frustration, are often the focus of research examining emotions in examination-taking contexts. Not only are such emotions prominent in this context, but they are also associated with lower examination grades (Pekrun et al 2004;Schutz, Benson, and Decuir-Gunby 2008;Myyry et al 2020). These emotions can be problematic because they can undermine interest and intrinsic motivation (Pekrun and Perry 2014).…”

How Pre-service Teachers' Conceptions of Assessment Change Over Practicum: Implications for Teacher Assessment Literacy

“…Six categories related to CoA changes emerged, and after being compared with prior studies, they were named as followed: (a) assessment purposes (Brown and Gao, 2015); (b) constructs in assessment criteria (Sun and Cheng, 2014); (c) feedback (Hattie and Timperley, 2007); (d) fairness in classroom assessment (Tierney, 2014); (e) student involvement in assessment (Xu and Brown, 2016); and (f) student engagement with assessment (Xu and Brown, 2016). Additionally, eight categories related to influential factors emerged, namely, (a) mentoring (Yuan and Lee, 2014); (b) classroom reality (Farrell, 2012); (c) school assessment culture (Myyry et al, 2019); (d) national assessment policy ; (e) (anti-)apprenticeship of observation about assessment (Lortie, 1975;Moodie, 2016); (f) interaction with students (Ng et al, 2010); (g) school-based assessment practice (Zhang et al, 2018); and (h) teacher agency in assessment (Rogers and Wetzel, 2013). We then summarized all the categories from both the focus group interview and the individual interviews to analyze changes of each participant's CoA over the practicum.…”

Establishing a Framework for Assessing Teaching Effectiveness

“…Structures and mechanisms need to be in place to hold institutions and faculty accountable for their role in student learning. However, in many higher education contexts, current procedures to evaluate teaching are inadequate, nebulous, and inaccurate-many times relying solely on student course evaluations and peer observations, which paint a very incomplete picture-and neither improve teaching directly nor incentivize teaching improvement (Stupnisky et al 2018;Shadle, Marker, and Earl 2017;Berman 2003;Fink 2008; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2020; Myyry et al 2020).…”