Students who experience mathematics anxiety have long been suggested to engage in avoidance behaviors that negatively impact their mathematics performance. However, little is known about how these avoidance behaviors manifest for highly anxious students within the context of a mathematics course. Since the use of effortful study strategies has…

Grades are frequently understood as an output of the educational process. However, they may also be an input: receiving a midterm grade may affect student performance in the remainder of the semester. Utilizing a regression discontinuity design to isolate the causal impact of midterm grades on subsequent student performance in the same course, we…

To understand examinee motivation, researchers have used expectancy-value theory, which posits that examinee's perceived value of the test and self-efficacy in the test domain impact test-taking effort. Conclusions from studies designed to examine these relations may be premature given methodological issues, most notably, use of cross-sectional…

This paper investigated the effect of grade dropping on students' performance, engagement, and satisfaction. In three different engineering courses that were taught by the author, an optional second midterm exam was offered near the end of the semester. The optional second midterm exam covered materials that were not covered by the first midterm…

Students typically overestimate how well they will perform on future academic events, then lower those expectations as the event and performance feedback approach. According to control theories, individuals also shift from primary control strategies to secondary control strategies when the opportunity to exert direct influence over a performance…

Feedback is crucial in every step of education, and we provide feedback to students in order to help them to either understand or improve their performance if they wish to improve their skills and abilities. However, how or whether they can benefit depends on their response to that feedback. Thus, when they receive feedback, they ought to be…

Exams often trigger avoidance motivation and a tendency to withdraw; instead, an approach-oriented motivational state would be more desirable, since this encourages an invigorated and persistent approach to tasks. This study investigated the role of academic self-concept on the activation of relative approach versus avoidance motivation during the…

Motivating students to watch pre-lesson videos to prepare for class is among the most significant challenges cited with flipped learning. We demonstrate boosting student preparation by up to 29% by implementing start-of-lesson quizzes. This is shown through the comparison of a flipped control group without the quizzes to flipped experimental…

In this study, we compare the academic performance and perceptions of two student groups. The control group includes students that receive traditional accounting instruction (TA) during the totality of a lecture. The experimental group receives a research-informed teaching (RIT) intervention for the final 10 minutes of TA delivery (PER sample).…

Creating summative assessments that accurately test students' breadth of knowledge and critical thinking can be a difficult task. Instructors often rely upon overly complex quick response questions or constructed response exams. However, students often have negative perceptions of the latter. The authors implemented an approach for administering…

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore and examine the influence of a comprehensive exam assessment instrument on student learning in a professional military education (PME) program. While the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School (CGSS) has adopted a summative assessment to evaluate student learning at the end of their PME…

The present study explores Saudi EFL male and female university students' standpoints on language learning demotivation which can reduce their motivation to foreign language learning. It also attempts to identify the most and least demotivating dimensions/factors of EFL Saudi male and female university students and to find out if there are…

The purpose of this study was to test the effects of a value-reappraisal intervention (VR) on students' motivation and performance compared to a goal-setting intervention (GS) and information-literacy control condition (C). Eighty-eight female students in an undergraduate introductory statistics course were randomly assigned to one of the three…

First year is a delicate time for students. Many have little idea what to expect of university, and their sense of identity as tertiary students is fragile. A diagnostic assessment early in first semester may reassure students that they have chosen the right path. However, some academics, particularly in engineering, argue that this early…

Technology-enriched lessons can contribute to improving student engagement and learning in engineering courses. In this study we systematically incorporated Kahoot!, a game-based response system, in two mandatory content-intensive undergraduate engineering courses. In both courses, short quizzes were incorporated regularly at the beginning of the…