DEVELOPING MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING

Motivation is important for learning as the outcome of education in twenty first century. Assessment can affect student motivation either to increase or destroy them. There are two types of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Both motivations are descriptions of overall form of motivation but how to promote the intrinsic motivation need to consider some underlying factors. The factors are interest, goal-orientation, locus of control, self-esteem, self-efficacy and self-regulation. All of them are very connected to each other.

            Interest is the result of interaction between individual and certain aspect of environment. Studies have identified two aspects of interest like individual interest and situational interest. If individual interest absents so situational interest particularly important for involvement in learning. Changing the social environment can encourage interest. Next, goal orientation is important for engaging in learning task to determine the direction of effort made. The learner will become motivated if they understand that learning is worthwhile. The relationship between goal by learner and how they respond to learning task can be express as learning goal and performance goal. Then, locus of control meaning that successfully controlling or perceive the success or failure to make sure either it under their control or not. If students capable of success, so they will be prepared to invest the necessary effort to meet challenges or if not, they will be avoided challenges.

Furthermore, self-esteem is how people value themselves as a different people with different responsibility. The confident ability of each person will determine their ability to overcome problem either can be success or not. Besides that, self-efficacy refers to capability of the learners feels of succeeding in a particular task given. If the student always face failure, so that they will become convinced of not being able to succeed or some help will reduce the persistence or unwillingness to have a chance of success. Finally, self-regulation refers to the will to act in ways that bring about learning that can control their attention and actions so that they will be able to solve problem.

Assessment is used to promote motivation for learning that link to several reason. It because, we want and indeed society needs, student who want to learn and value learning, know how to learn, feel capable of learning, understand what they have to learn and why and finally the student that enjoy learning.

However, there are some impacts of assessment that we need to avoid because it will give negative impact on student motivation for learning. Firstly, avoid creating a classroom culture, which favours transmission teaching and undervalues variety in ways of learning. Then, avoid on focusing the content of teaching narrowly on what is tested. Next, orienting students to adopt goal as performance rather than goals as learning. After that, providing predominantly judgemental feedback in terms of scores or grades and finally avoid favouring conditions in which summative judgements permeate all teachers’ assessment transactions.

To avoid some pitfalls the Assessment Reform Group (ARG), as a result of consultation with policy makers and practitioners on the implications of the research, concluded that designers and users of assessment system and tests should be more actively aware of the limited validity of the information about student attainment that is being obtained from current high stakes testing programmes. Then, reduce the stakes of such summative assessments by using, at international and local level, the performance indicators derived from them more selectively and more sensitivity. They should take due account of the potential for those indicators to impact negatively on learning, on teaching and on the curriculum. Next, be more aware of the true costs of national system of testing, in terms of teaching time, practice tests and marking. This is turn should lead policy makers to come to reasoned conclusions about the benefits and costs of each element in those systems. Furthermore, consider that for tracking standards of attainment at national level it is worth testing a sample of students rather than a full age cohort. This would reduce both the negative impacts of high stakes tests on student motivation and the cost incurred. In addition, use test development expertise to create forms of tests and assessment that will make it possible to assess all valued outcomes of education, including for example creativity and problem solving. Finally, develop a broader range of indicators to evaluate the performance of schools. Indicators that area derived from summative assessment should therefore be seen as only one element in a more broadly-based judgement. This would diminish the likely impact of public judgement of school performance on whose student whose motivation is most ‘at risk’.

As a conclusion, the impact of assessment on student can be negative too but how the teacher mediate the impact and see their role as helping student for their learning is more important. The alignment of assessment, curriculum and pedagogy is most easily upset by changes in assessment and this has to be taken into account in designing assessment policy.