How Do First-Year Undergraduate Engineering Students' Self-Reported Reasons and Motivations to Participate in Formative Assessments Translate Into Their Learning Achievement: An Exploratory Study

This full research paper uses sequential explanatory mixed-method design to explore and understand the reasons and motivations behind students' decisions to participate or not participate in completely optional, online formative assessments and how these reasons and motivations explain the different relationships between their formative assessment participation and summative achievement in a large first-year undergraduate fundamental engineering course in a land grand university in the western United States. In purpose terms, formative assessment is a learner-centered approach that allows students to assess their learning, identify their misconceptions, and address them early in the learning process. Formative assessments also help teachers to receive feedback that may help them adjust their instruction to students' learning needs. Extensive empirical and theoretical research has established the benefits of formative assessments in improving learning and instructional effectiveness within different subject areas, educational levels, and learning contexts. However, the fact that formative assessments are for feedback purposes and are usually low-stake or no-stake assessments might hypothetically affect students' motivation to participate in these assessments. This research could provide insights into enhancing students' motivation and engagement in formative assessments, thereby improving their learning outcomes. Students' formative assessment participation and summative achievement data in a class of 140 students were quantitatively analyzed to identify a purposive sample of eight (08) students with different levels of participation in formative assessments and different summative achievements. These eight students were selected based on the criteria as follows: students with (1) high formative assessment participation and high summative achievement, (2) high formative assessment participation and low summative achievement, (3) low formative assessment participation and high summative achievement, and (4) low formative assessment participation and low summative achievement. These students were then interviewed using semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions to collect insights into their reasons and motivations regarding different levels of participation in these assessments and to explore how these reasons and motivations explain their summative achievements. A deductive approach was employed to code and analyze the data and identify emerging patterns and themes. Results show that students' reasons and motivations are guided by their diverse achievement goal orientations. Moreover, these orientations also seem to dictate their strategies in formative assessment participation, which may, in turn, affect their achievement. One very significant finding of the study is that the voluntary and optional nature of formative assessments encourages students with a performance-avoidance orientation to participate because there is no fear of judgment or failure. These findings significantly impact our understanding of students' participation in formative assessments and have implications for practice. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB).