Manipulating the consequences of tests: how Shanghai teens react to different consequences

ABSTRACT

Students’ test-taking motivation has been found to be a predictor of performance. This study tests whether Shanghai students’ conceptions of tests and test-taking motivation differ when the consequence of tests have different foci (i.e., none, country, or personal). A between-subjects experiment with vignette instructions systematically assigned 1,003 Shanghai senior secondary school students to one of the three vignettes. Students’ conceptions of tests and test-taking motivation scales were evaluated using factor analyses. Invariance testing suggested invariant relationships between the two constructs across the three groups. Students’ general conception of tests meaningfully predicted their reported effort (β = .18). Latent mean analyses suggested that students’ reported effort, anxiety, and importance were not significantly different between country at stakes and personal stakes groups, but higher than when no consequences were attached. This study suggests that Shanghai students’ test-taking attitudes may contribute to high effort and consequently high performance on international large-scale assessments.

KEYWORDS:

• Students’ conceptions of assessment
• test-taking motivation
• effort
• test consequences

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Shanghai (China) ranked the first place in both PISA 2009 and 2012. In PISA 2018, the aggregated sample of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang also ranked the first.

2 Four jurisdictions in China participated in PISA 2015, namely, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Guangzhou.

3 The Shanghai PISA 2012 sample of 15-year-olds is mostly either in the last year of junior high schools (39.8%) or the first year of senior secondary schools (53.6% in total, within which, 63.4% attended regular schools and 36.6% vocational schools).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anran Zhao

Anran Zhao is now a data analyst at the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Her research focuses on international large-scale assessments with a special interest in its comparability across different cultures. This paper arises from her PhD thesis, now under examination.

Gavin T. L. Brown

Gavin T. L. Brown is a professor specialising in quantitative data analysis and psychometrics. He is also an affiliated professor at Umeå University. His research focuses on the relationship of assessment qualities and purposes to student and teacher responses around assessment including learning outcomes across a variety of cultural and social contexts.

Kane Meissel

Kane Meissel is a senior lecturer in educational psychology. His research focuses on the use of advanced quantitative methodologies to identify and reduce educational disparities, as well as promote equity and social justice for traditionally marginalised learners.