Commitment, compliance and comfort zones: the effects of formative assessment on vocational education students’ learning careers

Abstract

Research evidence that well‐executed formative assessment raises achievement and enhances motivation and autonomy has influenced policy and practice in schools and universities in the United Kingdom. Formative assessment is also built into the aims and assessment activities of outcome‐based qualifications in post‐compulsory education. Behind these apparently positive developments are important questions about the nature of motivation, autonomy and achievement that formative assessment fosters. This paper draws on empirical studies of assessment practices in advanced level vocational qualifications for 16–19‐year‐olds in the UK. It argues that a socio cultural understanding of assessment illuminates the ways in which political concerns about engagement and participation, rather than goals of subject‐based knowledge, encourage formative assessment practices that improve rates of achievement whilst encouraging instrumental and limiting forms of motivation and autonomy. This raises questions about the acceptable trade‐off between achievement and education for students whose learning careers already put them at a disadvantage.