2006 4 29 2

CELEA JournalBim onthly

Apr2006 Vol 29 No 2

TEACHERS CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT FEEDBACK AND STUDENT MOTIVATION LITERATURE REVIEW A

Wang Xiaoying Beijing Foreign Studies University

Abstract aiming to examine the relationship between teachers classroo m assessment The paperis a literature review feedback and student m otivationPrevious studies have been mainly focused on ho w each of the tw o has influenced students performances and achieve ment Ho wever according to the theoretical framew ork proposed by Brookhart 1997 it has been suggested thatteachers feedback may influence student m otivation first hich turn w in may have an im pact on students performances and achieve mentTherefore paper this first examines the nature and different types of feedback and then gives a su m mary and critique of research studies on the relationship between teachers feedback and student m otivationAreas that deserve further study are also indicated
Key w ords classroo m assessment feedback student m otivation literature review

Introduction
In the classroo m settings teachers are constantly conducting various kinds of assessm ents to draw inferences about their students for exa m ple their knowledge skills attitudes behaviors etc 1990 At the sa m e tim e teachers provide various kinds of feedback to students such Anderson 1989 as their judg m ent of their students their expectations and w hat is valued in their classIt has been increasingly recognized that teachers feedback is an im portant factor influencing students learning Kluger DeNisi 1996 Costa and Kallick1995pointed out that feedback is one of the chains in the continuous syste m of teaching learning assessing and feedback and beneficial feedback can be cyclical guides to learning and continued progress p and thus m ay help m ake the w hole syste m function as 25 an up ward spiral However theoretical fra m ew ork proposed by Brookhart1997 based on classroo m assessm ent a environ m ent literature and learning and m otivation literature indicated that teachers classroo m assessm ent feedback together with other ele m ents of a classroo m assessm ent event influences students m otivation first and then their achieve m entIn other w ords this external factor feedback is m ediated by the internal factor student m otivation before it has an im pact on students perform ances and achieve m entStudent m otivation actually functions as an in between m echanism Considering the im portant function feedback plays in classroo m teaching and learning should be w orth w hile to further it probe feedback into its nature and exa mine the effects of different types of feedback on students m otivational variablesThe following is a su m m ary and critique of research studies on the relationship between teachers classroo m assessm ent feedback and student m otivationFirst is a review of teachers classroo m assessm ent feedback then a review of student m otivation in relation to teachers classroo m and assessm ent feedback The final part su m m arizes the findings and indicates areas that deserve further study
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Su m m ary and Critique of Related Literature

Teachers Classroo m Assessment Feedback
Researchers have approached the nature of teachers classroo m assessm ent feedback fro m different perspectives and have used different terms to distinguish different types of feedback Ryan and other researchers 1985 put forward tw o types of feedback inform ational versus controlling fro m students perspective based on their cognitive evaluation theory According to their theory student intrinsic m otivation will increase if an action results in experience of autono m y and perception of co m petence Therefore a piece of feedback is inform ational if it leads to student perceptions of co m petence or expectation of future co m petence and is controlling if it leads to student perceptions of being forced to act in a certain way This kind of distinction was criticized in Butler s study1987w ho cited studies with mixed findings on the effects of positive inform ation about co m petence on intrinsic m otivation She pointed out that the reason for the conflicting results was because the researchers failed to consider if the inform ation was task involving or ego involvingTherefore proposed anther tw o terms to distinguish feedback she task involving and ego involving based on goal orientation theoryNicholls 1979 1983 1984 cited in Butler 1987 If a piece of feedback focuses student attention on task de m ands and m astery task itis involving if it focuses student attention on self w orth and co m parison with other students is ego it involving One pointin Butler s criticism deserves our attention She literally translated inform ational feedback to providing inform ation about student perform ance and co m petence but overlooked the ele m ent of student perception that was also included in Ryan et al theoryTherefore s the inform ational versus controlling should be tenable fro m student perceptive but its weakness is that it m ay not be very inform ative and helpful for educators to m anipulate feedback so as to bring about so m e positive effects on student m otivationIn this respect Butler s distinction should be m ore valuable because it informs teachers that feedback focuses on different things m ay bring about different m otivational orientations and consequently different achieve m ent Schunk1983used another tw o terms to distinguish feedback based on attributionaltheory Weiner 1977 1979 cited in Schunk 1983 and studied the differential effects of ability attributional feedback and effort attributional feedback on self efficacy and achieve m ent The tw o types of feedback were operationalized in the following way ability feedback is a re m ark You are good at this and effort feedback is a re m ark You ve been w orking hard Schunk 1983 851 Obviously w hat was exa mined in this study was just a sm all portion of all the possible feedback that a teacher can give to his her students According to the typology of feedback generated by Tunstall Gipps1996 w hat was exa mined in Schunk s study 1983 m ainly belongs to approvaltype of feedback that is positive and evaluative Tunstall and Gipps1996 conducted a one year longitudinal study and w orked out a typology of feedback that teachers use to young children in form ative assessm entThey identified tw o m ajor strands along w hich feedback generally functions socialization and assessm ent When feedback is used to inform and reinforce the values attitudes and classroo m procedures to children is an instru m ent of it socializationBut in m ost cases is used as an extension of assessm ent m ainly to provide children with it inform ation about their perform ance and co m petenceAssessm ent feedback is of m ajor concern here A co m parison of this typology with the classification proposed by Butler 1987m ay show that these tw o ways of looking at feedback generally m atch each other except that this typology is m ore detailed Figure 1 su m m arizes the types of feedback identified in Tunstall and Gipps s study It can be seen fro m Figure 1 that descriptive feedback directs student attention to task itself and e m phasizes task m astery and further im prove m ent and therefore can be said to be task involving hile w evaluative feedback directs student attention to external forces such as rewards or punish m ent or teachers opinion and e m phasizes self orth and co m parison w and therefore can be said to be ego involvingThe typology is m ore detailed for itindicates that evaluative feedback can be either positive or
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negative all descriptive feedback is positiveIt further shows that teachers feedback actually falls but so m ew here along the continuu m fro m m ost evaluative such as rewards or punish m ent to m ost descriptive such as constructing the way forwardThe evaluative or descriptive feature of feedback is not a m atter of absence or presence but a m atter of degree w hich im plies that evaluative feedback and descriptive feedback is not clear cut there might be so m e fuzzy areas between the m Certain types of feedback but m ay contain both evaluative and descriptive features at the sa m e tim e

Figure 1A su m m ary of the typology of feedback based on Tunstall and Gipps s study1996 One m ore strength of this typology is that descriptive feedback is further divided into tw o subtypes w hich reflects tw o different perspectives towards learning specifying attain m ent and im prove m ent is or related to m astery perspective and constructing achieve m ent and the way forward is related to or constructivist perspectiveThis subdivision shows that task involving feedback can be further divided into tw o types according to its functions one type focuses on the do m ain content w hile another focuses on strategy use Nowadays with classroo m assessm ent being m ore and m ore e m bedded into ongoing instructional activities and focusing m ore and m ore on assessing students deep level thinking Wilson 1996 Young Wilson 2000 it should be w orth w hile to exa mine the different effects of the tw o subtypes of task involving feedback on student m otivation and learning In an extensive review of the studies on the effects of feedback on learning Kluger and DeNisi one third of 607 effect 1996 found that although feedback on average im proved learning outco m es sizes were negativeThey used a theoretical hierarchy linked to the literature in m otivation to explain this pheno m enonThis hierarchy distinguished between task oriented feedback w hich tended to enhance learning and self oriented feedback w hich tended to be debilitating Their review proved both the function of m otivation as an in between m echanism and the usefulness of task distinction in studying ego feedback It can be seen fro m the above review that task versus ego distinction of feedback see ms m ore enco m passing and inform ative to researchers and teachers and m astery versus constructive distinction should be a valuable distinction as well w hich m ay help understand task involving feedback better

Student Motivation in Relation to Teachers Classroo m Assessment Feedback

Motivation is a kind of personal investm ent w hich is reflected in the direction intensity persistence and quality of w hat is done and expressed Maehr Meyer 1997 373 Educational psychologists have studied m otivation fro m its origins m ainly and have identified quite a few constructs that are believed essential in influencing people s personal investm ent Am es Am es 1984 Dornyei 2001 With regard to the studies on the effect of feedback on m otivation the following m otivational constructs have received m ost attention intrinsic m otivation task oriented ego oriented goal attributions about past success or failure and perceived self efficacy Reward positive and extre m ely evaluative type of feedback been studied extensively with its a has im pact on intrinsic m otivationStipek 1996 Based on the studies he reviewed Stipek su m m arized that the effect of rewards is not straightforward Rewards undermine intrinsic interest to the degree that they are perceived to be controlling and the controlling function can be conveyed in variable and subtle
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ways p However hen w the inform ation value of rewards is salient thatis hen rewards are w 98 interpreted as conveying positive inform ation about co m petence they can actually increase intrinsic m otivation p However Ca m eron and Pierce 1994 based on their m eta analysis of 96 98 experim ental studies concluded that reward overall does not decrease intrinsic m otivation and the only negative effect appears w hen expected tangible rewards are given to individuals sim ply for doing a taskCa m eron and Pierce s article drew severe criticisms forits oversim plified conclusion and proble m atic m ethods and analysisLepper et al 1996 Ryan Deci 1996 Kohn 1996 One possible reason for the conflicting results concerning the effects of reward on intrinsic m otivation probably lies in the fact that the researchers did not break dow n reward into different types according to its natureOne recent study on praise Henderlong 2001 showed that to distinguish praise according to task distinction proposed by Butler1987 m ay be an effective way to understand its ego effect on m otivation for older children Henderlong exa mined the effects of praising a child versus praising aspects of the child s perform ance on the child s intrinsic m otivation The results showed a gender difference for upper ele m entary students no difference for preschool children but It should be noticed that all the researchers w ho studied reward see m ed to be m ainly concerned with intrinsic m otivationThere see ms to be an underlying assu m ption that intrinsic m otivation is better than extrinsic m otivation However according to the latest version of intrinsic and extrinsic m otivations by Ryan and Deci2000 intrinsic and extrinsic m otivations are qualitatively different in terms of w hat m otivates one to do a task intrinsic m otivation and tw o types of extrinsic m otivation but identification and integration share m any things in co m m on in terms of actual behavior Doing so m ething for sheer enjoy m ent is intrinsic m otivation w hile for its instru m ental value is extrinsic m otivation But identification and integration types of extrinsic m otivation can be as self determined and valued by the self as the intrinsic m otivation p Therefore 62 both intrinsic m otivation and identification and integration types of extrinsic m otivation should be desirable in educational contextp Consequently 61 it should be w orth w hile to study the effects of reward any other type of feedback both intrinsic or on m otivation and extrinsic m otivation and those types of feedback that can bring about higher autono m y level of extrinsic m otivation should also be advocated in classroo m settings Schunk1983 based his study on the self efficacy theory Bandura 1977 1981 1982 cited in Shunk 1983 and attributional theory Weiner 1977 1979 cited in Schunk 1983 and conducted an experim ent to exa mine the effects of ability and effort attributional feedback on children s perceived self efficacy and achieve m ent The subjects were 44 third grade children and the study used a pretest treatm ent posttest design There were four treatm ent conditions effort feedback ability feedback ability effort feedback and no feedbackThe results showed that children w ho received ability feedback only had the highest self efficacy and perform ed best There was not m uch difference between effort condition group and ability effort group both groups outperform ed the no feedback condition but Actually this study was particularly focused on one type of positive and evaluative feedback encourage m ent de m onstrated the value of attribution theory in understanding the effects of this type It of feedback on m otivationHowever because this study was so focused did not exa mine the effects of it other types of feedback and how the effects of this type of feedback differ fro m the effects of other typesIn Butler s study 1987 she found that task involving feedback is better than ego involving feedback in terms of enhancing interest and perform ance But in Schunk s study 1983 this ego involving feedback can also be very positive and enhance perform ance Their incongruent findings probably resulted fro m their experim ental design should be w orth w hile to study their respective effects It and co m bined effects in real contexts Butler 1987approached feedback fro m its nature and conducted a true experim ent to study the effects of feedback on students goal orientations interest and perform anceHer design was similar to Schunk s design but her subjects were rando mly sa m pled w hich enhanced the internal validity of the studyShe assigned the subjects into four different feedback conditions m m ents task co involving gradesego involving praise ego involving and no feedback condition She used an attribution questionnaire to infer student goal orientation fro m their causal attributionsHer study showed that task involving feedback co m m ents tended to pro m ote task oriented goal and ego involving feedback
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praise tended to pro m ote ego oriented goal and no feedback pro m oted neither She also found grades that students w ho received task involving feedback showed higher subsequent interest and perform ed better than students w ho received ego involving feedback or no feedback This indicates a positive relationship between task involving feedback and subsequent interest and perform ance Her study also showed that praise w ould not enhance interest if it were provided in a way to pro m ote ego oriented m otivation In a follow studyButler 1988 she m ade so m e changes to the feedback conditionsThis tim e the up four conditions were m m ents co grades praise and grades plus co m m ents What was consistent in this study with the previous study was that only task specific co m m ents w ould im prove continuing m otivation and perform ance hile ego w involving feedbackgrades and praisew ould focus student attention on self w orth and co m parison and thus cause a decrease in perform ance When students received both task involving and ego involving feedbackgrades and co m m ents their ego oriented goaltook an upper hand and their perform ance decreased Butler s studies especially the earlier one 1987 are valuable in the following two ways bridged the It gap in task m otivation by proving thattask oriented goaltowards an im mediate task can be further sustained ego by different types of feedbackIt also dem onstrated a strong causal relationship between task involving ego feedback and the two types of goal orientation and subsequentinterest and performance However also has so m e weaknessesIts experim ental design as well as the characteristics of its it subjects fifth and sixth grade Jewish Israeli pupils m ay greatly reduce its external validityIn other w ords sa m e results m ay not be applicable in a different context Probably her design suited her the purpose well this experim ental design rese m bles little of real classroo m contextsMore im portantly but she did not take into consideration students original goal orientations before they received the feedback treatm ent has long been realized thatcharacteristics of both the individual and the situation are It thought to interact to im pact the state of goal involve m ent adopted and resultant achieve m ent patterns Nicholls 1989 cited in Newton Duda 1999 Therefore m ake the research findings to Dweck 1986 m ore applicable to real classroo m contexts other research m ethods probably should be adopted and student individual differences should be taken into consideration Lackey and other researchers 1997 conducted a correlational study exa mining the effects of teachers written feedback on students goal orientation and self efficacy and consequently on their writing perform ance in a real life settingThe subjects were 137 students in a second m ester fresh m an se level college English co m position class and 5 second m ester graduate assistant teachers se and the study used a pretest posttest designStudents goal orientation self efficacy and writing perform ance were m easured both at the beginning and the end of the term The feedback was categorized m ainly based on Butler s task distinction ego though they also m ade use of Schunk s finding on praise 1993 cited in Lackey et al1997 and considered the real feedback students received in this courseIn their study feedback was categorized into six groups task specific co m m ents written direct praise written non direct praise contradictory or a m biguous co m m ents written grades and atheoretical co m m entsincluding error correction on gra m m ar spelling sentence structure etc The results supported Bandura s contentionBandura 1986 cited in Lackey et al1997 that self efficacy is m alleable and positively related to im prove m ents in perform ance The results also supported the finding fro m Butler s study that there is a positive relationship between task specific co m m ents and students task oriented 1987 goal and their perform anceHowever study failed to support Butler s conclusion that ego the involving feedbackgrades and praise should be positively related to ego oriented goal The strengths of this study are obviousIt exa mined the relationship between teachers written feedback and changes in tw o of students m otivational variables in one particular context over a period of a w hole term Co m pared with the experim ental design the results fro m this study should be m ore inform ative and beneficial for teachers in similar teaching contexts Furtherm ore the researchers considered tw o m otivational variables as individual differences in their investigation and m easured the m both at the beginning and the end of the term their analysis In they used certain statisticaltools to find out both changes of those variables over tim e and how they interactedIa m not very confident about their statistical analysis this interactive research paradig m Maehr Meyer 1997 should be m ore but
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true to real classroo m contexts However the inconsistent finding concerning ego involving feedback m ay require further studies that take into consideration m ore variables to clarify the interactive patterns To su m up researchers so far have m ainly focused on a few m otivational constructs intrinsic m otivation goal orientation causal attribution and self efficacy hen investigating the relationship w between teachers classroo m assessm ent feedback and student m otivation There have been consistent findings that providing feedback is better than no feedback in pro m oting students to learn and generally speaking task involving feedback is beneficialInconsistent findings particularly exist in the effects of ego involving feedback

Su m m ary
While m otivation is regarded as a m ost im portant factor in influencing student learning Maehr Mayer 1997 it should be w orth w hile to exa mine factors that m ay influence student m otivation especially those factors that classroo m teachers can control so as to m ake our teaching m ore effective Obviously teacher s feedback is one of such factors w orth investigating The above review indicates that previous studies have touched upon this relationship between teachers feedback and student m otivation didn t exa mine this relationship in a co m prehensive way but Those researchers have approached this relationship fro m their ow n specific perspectives However w hat they have done and found provide valuable basis for further research With respect to teachers feedback although different researchers have used different terms to represent the nature of teachers feedback there see ms to be an agree m ent about the tw o essentially different types of feedback one focusing on students perform ance on a task inform ational feedback as in Ryan et al task involving asin Butler s study effort attributionalfeedback asin Schunk s study and one focusing on students the mselves controlling feedback as in Ryan et al ego involving as in Butler s study ability attributional feedback as in Schunk s study Furtherm ore Tunstall and Gipps s typology not only supported this distinction but also provided m ore inform ation about task involving feedback versus constructive distinction However ost previous studies have used this task m versus ego m astery distinction w hen exa mining the relationship between teachers feedback and student m otivation hile no w study has been done using Tunstall and Gipps s typologySince this typology is m ore co m prehensive future research m ay use this typology as a starting point to exa mine teacher s feedback in the classroo m With respect to student m otivation different researchers have focused on different m otivational constructs that is underlying reasons for student m otivation the intrinsic m otivation goal orientation causal attribution and self efficacy rather than the behavioral aspect of m otivation such as students choice on a task persistence on those tasks vigor in carrying the m out continuing m otivation w hen the task is over Maehr Meyer 1997 Wigfield Eccles 2000 Since w hat really counts in student etc learning is their choice effort and persistence future research should m ove a step further to exa mine both the underlying reasons for their m otivation and their m otivational behaviorIn this respect an expectancy value m odel of achieve m ent perform ance Wigfield Eccles 2000 m ay act as a guide for further studies in this areaThis m odel tries to explain how the expectancy and value constructs relate to students perform ance and choice This m odel integrates such m otivational constructs as intrinsic m otivation goal orientation causal attribution self efficacy well as m any other social and individual as factors More specifically argues that students interpretation of expectancies w here causal attributions it play a role m ay influence students goals and generalself sche m ata w here goal orientation theory and self efficacy theory are related hich m ay in turn influence students subjective task value w here intrinsic w m otivation are related w hich m ay in turn influence students achieve m ent related choices What is explained here is not to show that the relationship a m ong these factors is a sim ple linear one but to show the co m prehensiveness of this m odel Wigfield Eccles 2000 Therefore 69 future research based on this m odel m ay generate m ore co m prehensive understanding of student m otivation Regarding the specific area about the relationship between teachers feedback and students

Many other classroo m factors m ay also influence student m otivation in addition to teacher s feedback such as classroo m activities teacher s personalities see Am es etc 1992

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m otivation previous studies see m ed consistent on the positive effect of task involving feedback on student m otivationHowever there has been so m e inconsistent findings concerning the effects of ego involving feedbackTherefore m ore research is needed to get a better understanding of the effects of ego involving feedback on student m otivationAs discussed above future research can m ake use of Tunstall if and Gipps s typology to understand teachers feedback and the expectancy value m odel to understand students m otivation m ore co m prehensive and thorough understanding of this relationship m ay be a revealed It should be noted that allthe studies reviewed here were conducted in foreign countriesAsearch of the m ajor English language teaching journals in China in the past five years actually revealed few studies that have dealt with this area except for an increasing interest in teachers classroo m assessm ent either form ative evaluation Cao et al2004 Wang 2004 or achieve m ent testing Yuan 2002 However considering the large nu m ber of Chinese students w ho are learning English as a foreign language and the large a m ount of tim e students spend learning English further studies on the relationship between teachers feedback and student m otivation should provide valuable pedagogicalim plication for our English language teaching

References Ames C 1992Classroo ms Goals structures student m otivationJournal of Educational Psychology 84 and 261 271 Ames E C Ames eds1984 Research on Motivation in Education Vol 1 Student Motivation R San Diego CA Acade mic Press Anderson O J 1989Evaluation of student achieve ment Teacher practices and educational measure ment Alberta Journal of Educational Research 35 123 133 Anderson O J 1990Assessing classroo m achieve ment Alberta Journal of Educational Research 36 13 Brookhart M S 1997Atheoretical framew ork for the role of classroo m assessment in m otivating student effort and achieve ment Applied Measurementin Education 10 161 180 Butler 1987 Task R involving and ego involving properties of evaluation Effects of different feedback conditions on m otivational perceptions interest and performance Journal of Educational Psychology 79 474 482 Butler R 1988Enhancing and understanding intrinsic m otivation The effects of task involving and ego involving evaluation on interest and performance British Journal of Educational Psychology 58 1 14 Cameron W Pierce J D 1994 Reinforce ment reward and intrinsic m otivation A meta analysis Review of Educational Research 64 363 423 Cao Zhang W Zhou 2004Experimental im ple mentation of formative evaluation in an EFL R Y writing course for Chinese non English major university students Foreign Language Education 25 5 82 87 Costa B Kallick eds1995 Assessment in the Learning Organization Shifting the Paradigm A L Association for Supervision and Curriculu m Develop ment Dornyei Z 2001 Motivational Strategiesin the Language Classroom Cam bridge Cam bridge University Press Henderlong 2001 Beneficial and detrimental effects of praise on children s m otivation J Performance versus person feedback Dissertation Abstracts International Section B the Science Engineering 61 Abstract Kluger N A De Nisi1996 The effects of feedback interventions on performance A historical A review meta a analysis a preliminary feedback intervention theoryPsychological Bulletin 119 and 254 284 Kohn 1996 By all available means A Cameron and Pierce s defense of extrinsic m otivators Review of Educational Research 66 14 Lackey R R J B Miller C Flanigan 1997 March The effects of written feedback on m otivation and changes in written performancePaper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association Chicago ED IL 406690 Lepper R M Keavney M Drake M 1996 Intrinsic m otivation and extrinsic rewards Aco m mentary on Cameron and Pierce s meta analysis Review of Educational Research 66 5 32 91 Continued on p
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