Feedback on teachers’ text assessment: Does it foster assessment accuracy and motivation?

Teachers' assessment of students' performance on complex tasks, such as writing, is important both for their teaching and for students' learning. Teachers must be able and motivated to assess texts correctly. According to theoretical assumptions, feedback can help promote the diagnostic competencies required to assess texts correctly, but, up until now, no empirical studies have examined the effects of accuracy feedback on teachers' assessments. We conducted an experimental study comparing the effects of two feedback interventions with a practice-only control group on teachers' assessment accuracy and motivation. Student teachers (n = 181) and experienced teachers (n = 114) assessed 10 students' texts in all groups. The feedback in both of the feedback groups showed the teachers a comparison between their own assessments and correct assessments. We varied the feedback presentation between one single presentation after five texts and single presentations after each of the first five texts. We measured assessment accuracy and situational interest, which conceptualizes motivation, to assess the next five texts. The results showed that feedback promoted situational interest but not assessment accuracy. We discuss why teachers found feedback interesting and under what circumstances training interventions could be useful.