ABSTRACT
This chapter explores critical intersections in the ways we assess student performance and the impact of specific practices on school engagement and achievement motivation. Scholars have long been invested in understanding the associations between engagement, motivation, assessment, and cultural responsiveness, but practitioners and systems still struggle to rectify the problematic implications of “standardized” assessment processes on student experiences and outcomes, particularly for students who are routinely marginalized by traditional approaches. For example: What are fair, valid, reliable, culturally-sustaining, and motivating assessment practices that build on students’ diverse assets? Should all students, regardless of background and preparation, be assessed in the same way? Questions like these frame many of our educational policy and practice discussions, and they shape communities’ commitments to reform. In this chapter, we look specifically at the implications of various assessment approaches suggested by a range of studies that attend to student engagement and motivation, and we make recommendations for specific assessment practices that can be counted on to enhance core psychosocial drivers of academic achievement. We emphasize the importance of student choice, voice, affirmation, and belonging as critical to understanding the roots of engagement and motivation, and we link our assessment recommendations to these critical connections.
