Large-scale assessment as professional development: teachers’ motivations, ability beliefs, and values

ABSTRACT

In this study, conducted in the United States, the authors examined the motivational characteristics of teachers in the context of a large-scale performance assessment program. Teachers received professional development through their participation in the assessment program by writing items, reviewing items, and reviewing scoring criteria. An expectancy-value theory framework and embedded mixed-methods design were used to examine teachers’ (n = 119) motivations, ability beliefs, and values related to their professional development. Survey results showed that teachers generally had a high degree of intrinsic motivation for and associated social and pedagogical utility value with the professional development. Teachers reported positive ability beliefs, a high degree of usefulness, importance, and interest associated with the professional development, and positive changes to instruction and assessment. Results of multiple regression analyses showed teachers’ intrinsic motivations and ability beliefs predicted changes to instruction and assessments. Interview results illustrated the ways in which knowledge gained from involvement in the assessment program translated to practice. Results provided insight into the complexity of participants’ values, identifying factors that enabled or constrained changes to instruction and assessments.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• professional development
• expectancy-value theory
• teacher education
• teacher motivation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Corey Palermo

Corey Palermo, PhD, is Vice President, Performance Assessment Scoring at Measurement Incorporated in Durham, North Carolina, USA. His research investigates teachers’ beliefs and values as related to professional choices including engagement in professional development and commitment to the teaching profession, as well as automated writing evaluation (AWE), in particular interventions that utilize AWE to improve the teaching and learning of writing.

Margareta Maria Thomson

Margareta Maria Thomson, PhD, is an associate professor in the Teacher Education and Learning Sciences Department at North Carolina State University, USA. She teaches courses in motivation and educational psychology. Her research investigates the relations between preservice teachers’ motivations and teaching beliefs, and how these variables influence teacher candidates’ planned instructional choices, as well as teacher professional development.