Assessment and Intrinsic Motivation

Abstract

Don’t ask [the teacher] what he wants. [The teacher] doesn’t want anything, instead ask yourself: ‘What do I want?’

There is evidence a large proportion of accounting students experience extrinsic motivation when studying accounting at university, which has a strong relationship to surface learning. The experience of intrinsic motivation is a necessary precondition for students to experience deep learning. This study examines how to use assessment to support accounting students to experience intrinsic motivation. A sample of 81 students in a third year undergraduate accounting course was studied employing a phenomenographic research approach, using 10 assessed learning tasks for each student (as well as a focus group and student surveys) to measure their experience of how they learn.

A key finding is that it is possible to support a large proportion of students to experience intrinsic motivation through use of assessed learning tasks (as part of an integrated set of interventions) that are individualised (different for each student), authentic (involve the real world), include regular formative feedback and generally do not have ‘right’ answers but involve the use of personal judgement. Assessment design can support students to experience change in motivation and thus significantly impact learner outcomes.

Keywords: Accounting education, motivation, approach to learning, higher education, financial statement analysis

JEL Classification: I20, M41