Achievement goals and stress in summative assessment

A study among high school adolescents

Abstract

Studying the emotional consequences due to summative assessments on the adolescents’ school experience tends to take into account the consideration on grades and its consequences. In this belief, this research aims to grasp the link between accomplishment goals and adolescents school stress, specifically in summative assessments periods. The findings were based on submitted questionnaires to 163 students in grade 11 and revealed distinct profiles amongst adolescents. On the one hand, the results put in light the part of the school stress explained by accomplishment goals. They show how accomplishment goals predict the assessment stress on the other hand. The analyses also prove that differentiation between school stress and assessment stress is legitimate through accomplishment goals’ heterogeneous contributions, according to the context. This paper underlines the importance of caring about adolescents’ concern for grade and its stakes in personal, relational and social frameworks. Moreover, it promotes a changeover to supportive assessments for learning, with the aim to reduce emotional consequences thanks to transparent communication on the learning objectives and the grades. Finally, the analyses give the opportunity to consider adolescents perceptions of accomplishment goals adopted by their peers, their teachers, their parents.