Using Formative Assessments to Motivate Students in English Language Arts

In English Language Arts (ELA) classes, teachers can use formative assessments when students are reading and responding to complex texts to collect information about how individual students and the class as a whole are progressing towards meeting the learning goal. Teachers can then use that data to adjust instruction to further help motivate students to continue working towards meeting that goal. This quantitative two group study was designed to examine if formal formative assessments in the form of daily exit tickets and a weekly formative quiz used in ELA classes impacted tenth grade student motivation. Student motivation was measured using The Situational Motivation Scale as a pre- and post-test. The treatment group was given an exit ticket every Monday and Wednesday and a no-point quiz every Friday for six weeks. It was hypothesized that the treatment group’s motivation would increase. The results of the independent and paired t-tests showed no statistically significant difference in motivation between the treatment and control groups. However, students were more consistent with their self-reported motivation rankings on the SIMS post-test than the control group. Future research should be conducted to determine the impact that formative assessments can have on student motivation in ELA classrooms