A multi-approach formative assessment practice and its potential for enhancing student motivation: a case study

In the present study we investigate one 7th-grade mathematics teacher’s eight-month long implementation of a comprehensive multi-approach formative assessment practice. Based on an analysis of classroom observations, interviews and written teacher logbooks, this classroom practice is described in detail to illustrate how multi-approach formative assessments may be enacted in practice. Furthermore, based on the same data, we identify characteristics of formative assessment practices that have been argued to influence student motivational characteristics that affect motivation manifested as behavioural engagement and autonomous types of motivation. We also demonstrate that while the students in the two control classes (n = 9 in both classes) decreased their engagement in learning activities and became less autonomous in their motivation during this period, the students in the intervention class (n = 14) became more engaged and did not become less autonomous in their motivation.