Abstract
Background: Assessment beliefs play a central role in the understanding of psychological contributors that influence preservice teachers’ interpretation and understanding of reform-based assessment practices. However, limited attention has been paid to how preservice teachers’ learning is enacted as a regulatory response to assessment beliefs across different stages of teacher education.
Aim: This study aimed to identify characteristics of regulatory responses to the assessment beliefs of first-year and final-year preservice science teachers and to explore how these responses shape preservice science teachers’ learning.
Setting: The study was conducted within a university-based preservice science teacher education programme in South Africa.
Methods: Adopting a hermeneutic-phenomenological qualitative design grounded in self-regulatory theory, data were generated through in-depth interviews and analysed inductively.
Results: The findings revealed subtle differences in the characteristics of regulatory responses to assessment beliefs. Across both groups, self-directed learning (SDL), such as self-awareness of learning limitations, resourcefulness, the application of strategies and intrinsic motivation, was influenced by regulatory responses to reform-based assessment beliefs. The influence of regulatory responses on the belief that assessment is for testing and grading led to passive learning and extrinsic motivation.
Conclusion: The study highlighted the need to develop more reform-based beliefs about assessment among preservice science teachers to enhance the full scope of their SDL.
Contribution: Adopting a hermeneutic-phenomenological qualitative design grounded in self-regulatory theory, data were generated through in-depth interviews and analysed inductively.
Keywords: assessment; assessment beliefs; preservice science teacher; self-directed learning; self-regulatory theory; South Africa.
Introduction
The dominance of summative assessment cultures in schools is a cause for concern, as an educational system that prioritises summative assessments can perpetuate the notion that grades hold greater significance than skills development and learning (Xu & Brown 2016). This underscores the need to understand the impact of summative culture on learning. A qualitative study by Harrison et al. (2015a) among medical students found that summative assessments can create a toxic emotional environment dominated by fear, anxiety and disengagement from feedback. These findings echo wider concerns in the literature about the unintended consequences of high-stakes assessments, such as increased dropout, cheating and stress, all of which have long-term implications for learning (see Atjonen 2014; Cimer & Cimer 2010; Klinger & Luce-Kapler 2008).
Extending this argument into teacher education, Doyle et al. (2024) similarly demonstrate that preservice teachers experience intense negative emotional responses, particularly anxiety, fear of judgment and performance pressure, when assessment is framed in traditional, high-stakes ways. Such emotional conditions position assessment as an act of surveillance and judgment rather than a space for learning, leading preservice teachers to prioritise compliance and ‘getting it right’ over deep engagement and critical reflection (Doyle et al. 2024). In this way, Doyle et al. (2024) reinforce Harrison et al.’s (2015a) assertion that assessment environments can become emotionally detrimental but further show how these experiences are internalised into emerging teacher identities. These identities are often shaped by summative assessment cultures, which refer to educational environments that prioritise testing, grading and the measurement of learning products, such as final examinations, over the ongoing process of skill development (Doyle et al. 2024).
It is important to distinguish these traditional, high-stakes cultures from the concept of continuous summative assessment. When traditional summative assessment often serves as a static ‘means to grade and demonstrate acquired knowledge’, continuous summative assessment is designed to be interactive and feedback-rich (Trotter 2006). As described by Trotter (2006), this approach remains graded (summative) but encourages deeper learning through ongoing engagement and the use of feedback to improve performance before a grade is finalised. This distinction highlights that, when approached constructively, summative assessment can promote learning and challenge the binary view that only formative assessment is pedagogically valuable. Evident from students in Trotter’s study was that they felt they learned more because they had to prepare tutorial files, and the feedback improved their performance and engagement. This supports Black and Wiliam’s (2018) claim that summative assessment, when approached constructively, can also promote learning, challenging the binary view that only formative assessment can do so. Taken together, these findings suggest that the pedagogical value of assessment is shaped by how it is designed, enacted and interpreted. Hence, it seems worthwhile to examine how students respond to assessment demands by using assessment beliefs as an analytical window through which their lived experiences of those demands can be understood. Such an inquiry can shed more light on educational practices and policies that need to be interrogated and reformed to enable structural transformation grounded in the lived assessment experiences of preservice teachers.
The construct of assessment beliefs is described as teachers’ predispositions about the nature and purpose of assessment, which are organised internally to form conceptual structures and are believed to influence behaviour (Brown 2004; Buldur 2016; Remesal 2011). Rather than being treated as fixed or stable psychological traits, these beliefs are more accurately understood as context-dependent orientations that are socially constructed through a student’s long apprenticeship of observation within specific learning environments (Lortie 1975). A review study by Brown (2022) showed that students’ conceptions, also referred to as their beliefs about assessment, are meaningfully related to self-regulatory constructs, such as effort, use of learning strategies, interest and self-efficacy. This supports the idea that assessment beliefs are tied to how students respond to assessment demands, in a bidirectional relationship with the social-learning environment. This claim is further supported by other research that asserts that students’ beliefs about assessment guide and determine how they study (e.g. Brown & Harris 2012; Brown & Hirschfeld 2007; Monteiro, Mata & Santos 2021). While these orientations may appear stable over time, they remain fundamentally malleable and can be interrogated, contested and reconstructed when students encounter new pedagogical demands (Brown & Harris 2012; Monteiro et al. 2021). However, most of the research that established links between assessment beliefs and learning was conducted with secondary school learners (e.g. Brown & Harris 2012; Brown & Hirschfeld 2007; Kyaruzi 2019) and primary school learners (e.g. Monteiro et al. 2021). Research with university students focused on examining associations between assessment beliefs and how they interact with curriculum-based performance, learning outcomes and basic principles of assessment policy documents (e.g. Brown & Remesal 2012; Brown & Wang 2013; Daniels & Poth 2017; Gebril & Brown 2014; Vandeyar & Killen 2006).
While these studies have established links between students’ assessment beliefs and their educational outcomes, little is known about the regulatory processes through which these beliefs shape students’ responses to assessment demands, specifically in relation to their lived experiences. Moreover, little attention has been paid to the sources of these processes and how they mediate the regulation of assessment beliefs and their influence on learning, especially within preservice science education. To close this gap, this study aims to examine and compare first-year and final-year preservice science teachers’ regulatory responses to assessment beliefs and to explore how these responses shape their learning. The research questions addressed in the study are: (1) What characteristics of regulatory responses to assessment beliefs do first-year preservice science teachers have compared with final-year preservice science teachers? and (2) How do regulatory responses to assessment beliefs influence preservice science teachers’ learning?
Literature review
Assessment practices in science education
There is a growing emphasis on formative assessment practices in science education to focus students on learning (Zhai 2021). However, despite this increased emphasis, designing and implementing assessments to support science teaching and learning remain challenging, representing a universal struggle rather than a localised issue. To establish this global significance, research has identified significant barriers to formative reform in diverse international settings; for instance, Yan and Brown (2021) noted the persistent dominance of summative assessment practices in Hong Kong schools, a challenge similarly observed in Ireland by Doyle et al. (2024). While these international studies demonstrate that the struggle to implement formative assessment is a widespread phenomenon, they also serve to contrast the unique hurdles within the South African context. Specifically, South African science education assessment practices are still struggling to align with ideal reform-based practices and policy aspirations (e.g. Kibirige & Teffo 2014). These issues are expected because South African assessment policy documents (e.g. the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement) lack pedagogical guidance on implementing formative assessment effectively (eds. Reddy et al. 2015). Consequently, South African preservice teachers must navigate a universal ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie 1975), which is further complicated by a national policy framework that provides insufficient direction for shifting towards formative practices.
While the apprenticeship of observation (Lortie 1975) is a general phenomenon affecting all student teachers regardless of their discipline, its implications are particularly acute for science teacher education in South Africa and internationally. Since preservice teachers do not necessarily enter training with subject-distinct beliefs, they hold general orientations shaped by their prior lived experiences as learners within traditional summative schooling environments. These imbalances, where the focus remains on summative testing over formative practice, are a cause of concern because they perpetuate the belief that grades are more significant than skills enhancement and learning (Xu & Brown 2016). Because science education is currently driven by reform-based aspirations that depend on formative engagement, these general entry-level beliefs must be interrogated and reconstructed specifically within the context of science pedagogy to prevent the reproduction of passive learning cultures (Zhai 2021).
The sources and impact of beliefs about assessment
The construction of assessment beliefs is a complex process rooted in a teacher’s personal history and professional context. According to Richardson (1996), there are three main sources of teacher beliefs: (1) personal experience; (2) experience with schooling and instruction; and (3) experience with formal knowledge. Within science teacher education, these sources are fundamentally mediated by the broader socio-pedagogical environment, as Mansour (2009) emphasises the importance of studying the social and cultural perspectives on science teachers’ beliefs as a foundation for understanding how teachers conceptualise their work. The significance of this socio-cultural shaping is evident in specific educational contexts; for example, Brown and Gao (2015) found that Chinese teachers who strongly believed in the importance of summative evaluation were less inclined to use formative assessment. Xu and Brown (2016) regard the assessment beliefs held by this group of Chinese teachers as a misconception, as they reflect traditional practices that are inconsistent with research evidence on effective practice or with current policy expectations.
Brown and Harris (2012) show that learners’ beliefs about assessment align with how assessment is used in their school environments and that these beliefs vary by level of schooling. Consequently, preservice teachers who are still students enter teacher education programmes with assessment beliefs shaped by prior schooling systems dominated by a summative assessment culture. These beliefs can be at odds with views that are adaptive for the promotion of learning (Brown & Remesal 2012; Xu & Brown 2016; Yough et al. 2023).
A noteworthy study by Daniels and Poth (2017) found that preservice teachers with assessment beliefs focused on improving learning were associated with mastery-oriented learning. Conversely, beliefs about assessment for accountability and meeting societal needs were associated with performance-oriented learning. Although their study provided useful information on the impact of assessment beliefs on learning, it was limited in that the regulation of such beliefs on learning was inferred indirectly through the achievement goal theory, using self-reports, and little evidence was known about the exact sources shaping those beliefs about assessment.
Theoretical framework
The theory of self-regulated learning (SRL) can make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the mechanisms by which regulatory responses to assessment beliefs are uncovered and linked to student learning. This study conceptualises SRL using Zimmerman’s (2002) model of SRL, which posits that students actively manage their cognition, motivation and behaviour to support their own learning and development (see Porter & Peters-Burton 2025). Central to SRL is the role of students’ beliefs in shaping how they interpret and act in learning situations (Boekaerts 1999). Although research on SRL has extensively examined motivational beliefs such as self-efficacy and goal orientation, comparatively little attention has been paid to students’ beliefs about assessment and to how these beliefs mediate regulatory responses to assessment demands. To understand the link between assessment beliefs and SRL, we draw on insights from Brown (2011), who argues that beliefs about assessment influence effort, engagement and strategy use. We argue that these efforts, engagement and strategy use, as shaped by beliefs about assessment, are constrained and enabled by the social-learning environment in which those beliefs are formed.
Drawing on these ideas, the current study uses assessment beliefs as constructed from their conceptual understanding of assessment, which combines their knowledge of assessment (cognitive domain), their emotions towards it (affective domain) and the importance they attach to it (evaluative domain); these aspects work together to form the three dimensions of assessment beliefs (Nespor 1987; Pintrich 1990; Xu & Brown 2016). These three assessment belief domains are personal-psychological aspects that serve as an analytical window into exploring the regulatory responses to assessment beliefs (which are shaped by lived assessment experiences) and their influence on learning, as illustrated in Figure 1.
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FIGURE 1: Self-regulatory framework linking assessment beliefs to student learning. |
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The self-regulatory framework depicted in Figure 1 is constructed based on the ideas from Zimmerman’s (2002) model of SRL, which is rooted in the social cognitive theory and focuses on the impact of personal, behavioural and environmental influences on human learning and development. While Figure 1 is grounded in Zimmerman’s (2002) triadic model of SRL, it introduces specific interpretive expansions by: (1) centring assessment beliefs as a primary mediator of self-regulation; (2) operationalising these beliefs through a tri-dimensional structure (cognitive, affective and evaluative); and (3) explicitly linking these internal constructs to the lived assessment experiences that form them. These modifications differ from Zimmerman’s (2002) SRL model, which examines motivational beliefs, such as self-efficacy and goal orientation, as drivers of the self-regulatory cycle. While Zimmerman (2002) acknowledges personal processes, Figure 1 provides a more granular ‘analytical’ window by mapping how cognitive, affective and evaluative domains work together to form a student’s predisposition towards assessment. Moreover, Figure 1 expands the environmental aspect of Zimmerman’s (2002) model by explicitly identifying lived assessment experiences as the source of these beliefs. In so doing, it conceptualises the environment not just as a static setting, but as a historical and social-learning environment (the apprenticeship of observation) that shapes the internal personal constructs depicted in the model. Lastly, Figure 1 introduces the regulatory response as the functional mechanism linking internal beliefs to learning outcomes. In Zimmerman’s (2002) model, the phases of forethought, performance and self-reflection are often presented as general cycles. Figure 1 modifies this by illustrating that these phases are enacted as a direct response to the interpretation of assessment demands. This allows the study to categorise learning outcomes specifically as either self-directed or passive based on the nature of the regulatory response.
Research methods and design
Research design
The study used a hermeneutic phenomenological design, which enabled participants’ subjective meanings to be established by exploring their lived experiences of assessment, and these experiences were then analysed inductively to identify emerging themes, as Miller and Barrio Minton (2016) explain. In the hermeneutic approach to phenomenology, the affordance of theories provides a way of grasping and understanding the meaning dimensions that correlate with lived experience, which can help interpret the findings (Neubauer, Witkop & Varpio 2019). Hence, the current study adopted a hermeneutic approach, enabling the research to capture participants’ assessment beliefs across three dimensions. These dimensions are the cognitive domain (what a student believes is true or false about assessment), the affective domain (emotional inclinations towards assessment) and the evaluative domain (the value placed on assessment) (Remesal 2011; Xu & Brown 2016).
Participants in the study
The study was conducted at a South African university that offers a Bachelor of Education programme. Participants were purposively selected during the first semester from a cohort of first-year preservice science teachers and at the beginning of the second semester from a cohort of final-year preservice science teachers. Both cohorts were enrolled in a Bachelor of Education degree in Natural Sciences Education. The inclusion of first-year preservice science teachers was intended to maximise response variation and identify patterns within it, as first-year students are at the beginning of their training and final-year students are at the end of theirs. This variation in participants’ experiences enabled the researcher to make broader claims about the phenomenology at work, as Bordogna (2021) explains.
An independent person recruited 10 first-year participants on the basis of their willingness to reflect on and discuss their assessment experiences. Four of the 10 participants were male, and six were female, and their ages ranged from 18 years to 21 years. Nine final-year participants were recruited, comprising three male and six female. Thus, a total of 19 participants took part in the study. The participants came from different ethnic groups and socio-economic backgrounds.
Data-gathering process
Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth individual interviews, conducted by the end of the first semester for first-year participants and at the beginning of the second semester for final-year participants. These interviews were conducted at a time and place designated by the participants, with interviews lasting 20 min – 35 min. The interview protocol comprised six open-ended questions. These questions were formulated based on three assessment belief domains, which focus on students’ knowledge of: (1) assessment (cognitive domain), (2) their emotions towards assessment (affective domain), and (3) the importance they attach to assessment (evaluative domain). These three domains offered a convenient window through which to examine and probe regulatory responses to assessment beliefs and their influence on students’ learning. The following questions were posed:
- Probing for assessment beliefs in the cognitive domain: What teaching and learning experiences have shaped your understanding of assessment in Natural Sciences?
- Probing for assessment beliefs in the affective domain: What contexts or situations have influenced and affected how you feel about the assessment in Natural Sciences?
- Probing for assessment beliefs in the evaluative domain: Which assessment approach(es) in Natural Sciences, if any, do you favour? Provide a reason as to why these assessment approaches are important to you.
Follow-up questions preceded these questions, which required the participants to describe their assessment experiences or the situations that led them to understand assessment as they did. This was followed by a question asking the participants to elaborate on assessment experiences or situations that led them to feel the way they did about assessment. Additional probing and prompting questions were used to reiterate the questions and further guide the interview discussion. For example:
- You mentioned … Describe it in more detail.
- You mentioned … What was it like for you?
- You mentioned … How did the process unfold?
Data analysis
The data were analysed inductively, categorising them into themes using an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach. Interpretive phenomenological analysis involves analysing participants’ responses to understand how they make sense of their personal and social worlds (Smith, Jarman & Osborn 1999). This approach was appropriate, as the intent was to uncover the characteristics of regulatory responses to assessment beliefs and, from the sources of these beliefs, to assess how learning was influenced by these regulatory responses. The process involved iterative reading to identify key statements, which were clustered into meaning units and grouped to form subcategories associated with the cognitive, affective and evaluative assessment belief categories, as shown in Table 1 and Table 2.
| TABLE 1: First-year preservice science teachers’ regulatory responses to assessment practices (N = 10). |
| TABLE 2: Final-year preservice science teachers’ regulatory responses to assessment practices (N = 9). |
The process unfolded by identifying meaning units, which are coding frames that reflect the coded accounts related to the characteristics of participants’ assessment beliefs. Similar meaning units were grouped together to form regulatory responses that represent sub-categories linked to a specific assessment belief domain.
Thereafter, the process was repeated to identify meaning units that reflected the coded accounts of participants’ sources of regulatory responses to assessment beliefs. Similar meaning units were grouped to form condensed meaning units that captured the core meaning of the participants’ learning accounts emerging from their lived assessment experiences. From these condensed meaning units, code labels were assigned that described the meaning of the condensed meaning units. Conceptually similar codes were then clustered and organised into themes anchored in a central notion to explain the impact of students’ regulatory responses to assessment beliefs on learning.
Trustworthiness and research ethics
Specific strategies were used throughout the research process to enhance the study’s trustworthiness. Credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability are strategies that establish the trustworthiness of qualitative studies (Guba 1981; Krefting 1990). The researchers set aside their personal biases during data gathering and analysis by focusing solely on coded frames that reflected the participants’ words and experiences. The main author made reflective notes (Shenton 2004) to guard against personal bias during the interpretation of the findings, which were subsequently shared with the co-author for verification. A thick description (Ponterotto 2015) of the research setting and participants was provided in order to further enhance the trustworthiness of the study. Ethical issues were addressed by obtaining ethical clearance from the relevant ethics committee and permission from the university gatekeepers. Informed consent was obtained from the participants, who were free to withdraw from the study at any time.
Ethical considerations
Ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the North-West University Education Sciences Research Ethics Committee (No. NWU/00297/22/A2) on 26 October 2023.
Results
The research findings are organised and presented in relation to the two research questions. The first question addressed is: What characteristics of regulatory responses to assessment beliefs do first-year preservice science teachers have compared with final-year preservice science teachers?
The sub-categories shown in Table 1 and Table 2 represent characteristics of regulatory responses to assessment beliefs framed within the cognitive, affective and evaluative assessment belief domains. The frequency of occurrence for each sub-category is shown to enhance the analytical transparency of the findings and reveal variations across sub-categories. Responses from first-year participants are presented in Table 1.
The sub-categories presented in Table 1, regarding first-year preservice science teachers’ affective regulatory responses to their affective assessment belief domain, indicate that their negative emotions towards assessment are mainly based on feelings of test anxiety, stress, displeasure with tests, being drained and dissatisfaction with traditional forms of assessment, such as tests and examinations. These feelings were expressed in the following responses:
‘I personally don’t like, for example, uhmm … having tests about everything.’ (P9, First-year, Female)
‘… [assessments are not nice … well, they are good for you teachers to identify the parts that are missing … but for us, they are draining.’ (P1, First-year, Female)
The first-year participants’ positive emotions regarding assessment stem from their view that assessment is a good way to provide teachers with feedback on learning, as evidenced by the following responses:
‘… [it’s a good thing ’cause teachers or lecturers will know where learners stand.’ (P8, First-year, Female)
‘… [it’s [assessment is] a good thing, like gathering information. Then, where you feel like you lack [something], then that’s when you should ask help from lectures or teachers.’ (P4, First-year, Female)
Within the SRL theory, the regulatory response to the affective assessment belief domain can be explained by the self-reflection phase. Students manage their emotions in response to the outcome of their performance, and they can experience either satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Zimmerman 2002).
Positive emotions towards assessment corresponded with the cognitive response of viewing assessment as a means to check learner understanding, which was further supported by P3, P8 and P4 (as shown in Table 1).
‘… [a way of understanding what a person can actually do.’ (P3, First-year, Male)
‘… [assess how learners understand the content and what they can correct on [sic] how to teach learners.’ (P8, First-year, Female)
‘… [an ongoing process of gathering information of what learners already know and understand.’ (P4, First-year, Female)
The first-year participants’ regulatory response to the cognitive assessment belief domain, which indicates that assessment is viewed as a means to check learner understanding, aligns with the value placed on assessment. This can be seen in their regulatory response to the evaluative assessment belief domain, which indicates that assessment is viewed as a means to support deeper learning and engagement, as indicated by the following responses:
‘I prefer cooperative learning … teachers should give the learners their own space to relate the content to what’s happening in the real world.’ (P1, First-year, Female)
‘I favour … the ones that require both the teacher and the learner to be more engaged and interactive towards each other.’ (P3, First-year, Male)
The regulatory responses of final-year preservice science teachers to assessment practices are presented in Table 2.
There are slight variations in the sub-categories shown in Table 2 regarding final-year participants’ regulatory responses to the cognitive and evaluative assessment belief domains. For instance, the final-year students perceived the value of assessment as related to improving both teaching and learning, whereas the first-year participants valued assessment as a means to support learning and deeper engagement, with no mention of its supportive role in teaching. This subtle difference suggests that prolonged teacher training has strengthened final-year teachers’ professional identity as teachers.
In comparison, the subcategories of the final-year participants also reflect similar regulatory responses. For example, the findings from the final-year participants show that their negative inclination towards assessment is because of dissatisfaction with traditional summative assessment practices, just as among the first-year participants. This is evidenced by the following responses:
‘… [on certain aspects when it comes to memorandums and writing test sometimes it gets boring … it makes school not to motivate you [sic] … sometimes we got exhausted.’ (R3, Fourth-year, Female)
‘Students feel anxious when writing exams, even when they studied.’ (R6, Fourth-year, Male)
Likewise, the participants’ positive inclination towards assessment stemmed from viewing it as a mechanism for evaluating understanding to improve learning. This is evidenced by the following responses:
‘The purpose of assessment is for the learner to improve and to provide feedback.’ (R2, Fourth-year, Female)
‘… [to monitor the skills and level of understanding of learners.’ (R4, Fourth-year, Female)
‘Feedback from it allows educators to have an understanding as to which areas to focus on with their learners.’ (R7, Fourth-year, Male)
The responses from Participants R2, R4 and R7 align with the value they place on assessment, as evidenced by the regulatory response to the evaluative assessment belief domain category, which shows that most final-year students view assessment practices as a tool to support and improve teaching and learning. This is evident in the following responses:
‘… [process of analysing the development as well as level of understanding of the learners.’ (R4, Fourth-year, Female)
‘I think it’s a way of finding out if the lesson outcomes or lesson objectives were met; it’s a way of finding out that the learners have learnt something.’ (R5, Fourth-year, Female)
‘… [seeing that learners understand what you have just taught them or what they were taught.’ (R8, Fourth-year, Female)
As with the first-year participants, only a few final-year participants valued assessment as a means of demonstrating acquired knowledge, as shown in Table 2. This evaluative regulatory response to the evaluative assessment belief also corresponded with their cognitive response to assessment practices, which they regarded as a means of testing. This is evidenced by the following participant response:
‘I believe it’s [assessment] testing to see if learning was achieved … words like test and exams come to mind.’ (R6, Fourth-year, Male)
Upon further probing, the participant provided the following reason when asked to explain why the assessment approach(es) they mentioned was important to them:
‘I favour exams, [the] reason being [that] exams cover the overall content taught. If a learner does well in exams, it shows an ability to grasp knowledge at a significant[ly] greater level as required by the curriculum.’ (R6, Fourth-year, Male)
The second research question addressed is: How do regulatory responses to assessment beliefs influence preservice science teachers’ learning?
Through IPA, five major themes emerged that capture the influence of preservice science teachers’ learning, as shaped by regulatory responses to their lived assessment experiences. The themes are: (1) self-awareness of learning limitations, (2) resourcefulness, (3) application of learning strategies, (4) motivation and (5) passive learning.
Theme 1: Self-awareness of learning limitations
The assessment experiences of the participating first-year preservice science teachers revealed gaps in their learning and understanding. This recognition of personal learning limitations reflects the students’ self-awareness of their learning needs. The following responses provide evidence of this:
‘I had a problem of losing focus when I was doing Grade 10 and 11; I couldn’t study on my own.’ (P4, First-year, Female)
‘I had problems understanding some of my teachers, and this reflected badly on my grades.’ (P3, First-year, Male)
‘As a slow learner, the communicative nature (interaction) and engagement with peers often helps me.’ (R1, Fourth-year, Male)
A common feature of these responses is that they show how the participants responded to regulatory responses to assessment, which is viewed as a means to assess understanding and support learning and engagement by identifying weaknesses in their learning. In this way, assessment functions as a mirror, helping students recognise their current level of understanding. This is further evident in the following responses from participants when asked which experiences had shaped their beliefs about assessment:
‘Unlike in high school, we did not know what the purpose of assessment is … and we use tests and assignments as an opportunity to get high marks, unlike to use [sic] them as tools to help to identify our weaknesses and strong points.’ (P6, First-year, Male)
‘Assessment has helped me identify learning gaps [and] notice and correct my mistakes or misconceptions about particular topic[s] or content.’ (R9, Fourth-year, Female)
‘I can see what I am struggling with and how I can improve my learning.’ (P5, First-year, Male)
When considering Zimmerman’s (2002) SRL theory, the forethought SRL phase is associated with diagnosing learning needs and setting goals, aligning with this theme. This diagnostic regulatory response to assessment runs parallel to the characteristics of self-directed learning (SDL), which entails learners’ ability to diagnose their learning needs and then identify relevant resources to close the gap, with or without the help of others (Knowles 1975). This diagnostic response to assessment is also evident in the regulatory responses to the affective assessment belief domain, shown by the participants’ positive emotions towards assessment. This is evident from the following responses:
‘It [assessment] assists learners in evaluating their learning over a period of time.’ (P2, First-year, Female)
‘Assessments make them [learners] aware of their mistakes.’ (P4, First-year, Female)
‘I feel like assessment is necessary so that you can [know] whether you are learning and to identify your learning gaps.’ (R9, First-year, Female)
Theme 2: Resourcefulness
The theme ‘resourcefulness’ concerns identifying and accessing resources for learning. These resources were linked to reflective behaviours that relate to how students regulate their learning when confronted with assessment demands. This theme was evident in the following responses:
‘Being a student, having [a heavy] workload, one due date after the other … I realised that in the process of having a lot of work to do, I do a lot of research, which then makes me understand topics even much better.’ (P2, First-year, Female)
‘I asked the best-performing learners in the subjects to tutor me … it was easier to understand them than my teachers.’ (P3, First-year, Male)
‘As a slow learner … engagement with peers often helps me better solidify, if not correct, my understanding of new content.’ (R1, First-year, Male)
These responses show how the participants regulated their responses to their evaluative assessment belief domain, which values assessment as a means for deeper learning and engagement, by seeking information through research and engaging with peers. In this way, assessment prompted their resourcefulness to help close their learning gaps. For instance, the participants’ responses indicate that their resourcefulness was shaped by their self-awareness of a learning limitation that surfaced as a result of their assessment experiences, which led them to seek help from their peers and conduct research to bridge the shortfalls and enhance their understanding. The resourcefulness reflected by the participants aligns with the SDL processes of selecting appropriate learning resources (see Knowles 1975).
Theme 3: Application of learning strategies
The theme ‘application of learning strategies’ highlights how the participants regulated their responses to the value placed on assessment, resulting in their use of specific strategies to improve their learning. For instance, one participant said:
‘Doing group tasks lets learners engage and share ideas about a subject at hand. This becomes more useful and resourceful to students that struggle to learn when the lecturer is explaining.’ (P2, First-year, Female)
Another participant supported the use of group work as a useful strategy that enables students to enhance their understanding through interactions with their peers. The participant said:
‘We always did group work to achieve a certain goal … that way, learning was easy.’ (P8, First-year, Female)
Within Zimmerman’s (2002) SRL theory, the performance phase of SRL involves task strategies such as time management, seeking help, structuring a learning environment and metacognitive monitoring, which are closely linked to the implementation of learning strategies in SDL. For example, the learning strategy of group work aligns with SDL processes that emphasise collaboration among students, providing opportunities for them to monitor and control the learning process (Garrison 1997).
In the following response, P5 demonstrated the use of structured approaches to address complex, higher-order questions during assessment:
‘When you get a higher-order question that requires you to give your opinion and solve a problem, you would need to PEE on the paper – PEE standing for stating the Problem, Explaining the effects and causes, and giving Examples on how to solve the problem.’ (P5, First-year, Male)
The strategy used by this participant reflects a deliberate effort to manage assessment demands, moving beyond rote memorisation towards critical thinking and reasoning. The use of such a strategy is a hallmark of SDL, aligning with the self-management aspect, which entails students applying learning strategies to manage their learning process (Garrison 1997). This strategy is also evident in the following response from another participant:
‘In my Natural Science lecture, we did brainstorming as a way of gathering information about the human body systems, the diseases of the systems, main processes involved, main organs and what the main purpose of that system is. This made it easier for me, as a student, to grasp information better in a mind map. And also, when I was doing the research, I grasped a lot of new information.’ (P2, First-year, Female)
When the students were asked to identify which assessment practices helped their learning, one participant mentioned watching YouTube videos and another mentioned using digital devices. Their responses were:
‘One of them is to watch YouTube animations that give you a better perspective about the work, as well as it helps you to be more interested in the work than just staring at a page full of information.’ (P9, First-year, Female)
‘The majority of the work at university is done using computers … so, now that I saw what is required, I’m now able to complete my given task here.’ (P6, First-year, Male)
The application of these strategies reflects the students’ active role as agents in their learning and development. These responses show how they regulated their responses to their evaluative assessment belief domain, which values assessment as a means for deeper learning and engagement, and to their cognitive assessment belief domain, which holds that assessment is for assessing understanding further, indicative of their positive emotions towards assessment. Thus, the students’ application of various learning strategies, as influenced by their regulatory responses to their assessment beliefs, aligns with the foundational principles of SDL, which constitute an active learning process (Beckers, Dolmans & Van Merriënboer 2016).
Theme 4: Motivation
This theme concerns students’ responses that demonstrate motivation to learn, influenced by their regulatory responses to the affective assessment belief domain, showing positive emotions towards assessment, driven by creative, engaging and stimulating assessment experiences. The following quotations provide evidence for this:
‘… [to create to design to plan with prior knowledge and new concepts makes learning fun.’ (R8, Fourth-year, Female)
‘Problem-based learning activities are more engaging.’ (R3, Fourth-year, Female)
‘I like, for example, practicals, like when we work with the microscopes and so on, because you get a deeper understanding of the work when you do it physically.’ (P9, First-year, Female)
The responses above show that problem-based learning and practical, creative assessment can trigger intrinsic motivation to learn. However, according to the SRL theory, students’ motivation is intricately linked to the establishment of learning goals and to their efforts to monitor, regulate and control their cognition, motivation and behaviour (Pintrich 2000). Although the aspect of students setting goals was not evident from their responses, this finding supports the notion that intrinsic motivation can be enhanced by tasks with an appropriate level of novelty and difficulty, which are related to personal interests and allow for personal choice and control (Schunk 2012). In the context of SDL, intrinsic motivation is seen as a mediator between the process by which the student takes responsibility for constructing personal understanding and the application of learning strategies to meet desired educational outcomes (Garrison 1997).
However, from the students’ responses, it was also noted that the participants’ regulatory responses to the affective assessment belief domain, characterised by negative emotions towards assessment driven by testing and examinations, hampered their motivation to learn. This is evidenced in the following quotations:
‘My experience is that assessment is made to seem like something that determines the fate of the learner, and as such, learners go to assessment with fear of failure, and thus, this affects their capacity to perform.’ (R7, Fourth-year, Male)
‘Based on my own experience, I always felt like tests and examinations are not doing me any justice. They do not fully convey the knowledge and understanding that I have about the content.’ (R5, Fourth-year, Female)
‘Students feel anxious when writing exams, even when they studied. To combat this, the university may organise some pre-exam motivational sessions … to make students feel at ease.’ (R6, Fourth-year, Male)
From these responses, the following maladaptive behaviours could be identified: (1) fear of failure; (2) a lack of enjoyment in school; (3) anxiety; and (4) dissatisfaction with examinations. These maladaptive behaviours towards tests and examinations can hamper students’ meaningful engagement and motivation for deeper learning, such as SDL.
On the other hand, P6 expressed negative emotions towards testing and examinations, as shown in Table 2. The participant demonstrated extrinsic motivation to achieve high marks, as a regulatory response to negative affective assessment beliefs about tests and examinations. The participant said:
‘Unlike in high school, we did not know what the purpose of assessment is … we use test[s], exams and assignment[s] as an opportunity to get high marks.’ (P6, First-year, Male)
One explanation for the regulatory response expressed by P6 is that students’ effort, engagement and strategic regulation, as mediated by assessment beliefs, are inextricably linked and shaped by the learning environment that produced and sustained those beliefs. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that P6’s extrinsic motivation to obtain grades is linked to how tests and examinations are used in the learning environment, namely for grading and measuring learning rather than for identifying learning needs and taking remedial action.
This assumption was supported by P10, who placed value on an assessment that was congruent with the view of assessment as a means to grade and demonstrate acquired knowledge. The participant said:
‘[What] I like the most is the formal assessment … [where] I can sit down and relax and try and remember my work and where I can write things down.’ (P10, First-year, Male)
This participant’s regulatory response to the evaluative assessment belief domain aligns with the view of assessment as a means to grade and demonstrate acquired knowledge. This led to the participant’s satisfaction with the testing culture in higher education, resulting in effort being directed towards learning for the end-of-year examination. The participant said:
‘I actually like how the university approaches assessment because I have maths and biology, and there, we have weekly tests, and that is really a good choice because we can revise before we get the end-year exam.’ (P10, First-year, Male)
This value placed on assessment does not align with the reform-based assessment practices currently advocated, which align with assessment-for-learning and assessment-as-learning practices. As indicated by P6 and P10 responses, tests and examinations provide extrinsic motivation that encourages students to improve their marks or maintain their grades, as noted by Trotter (2006). This focus needs to be reconciled and changed, as it has the potential to diminish the role of assessment in influencing how students learn (process) by placing more emphasis on what they learn (product).
Theme 5: Passive learning
The theme of ‘passive learning’ depicts how the participants’ learning was influenced by their regulatory response to the cognitive assessment belief domain, which portrays assessment as testing, and by their response to the evaluative assessment belief domain, which portrays assessment as a means to demonstrate acquired knowledge. For instance, the following responses indicate passive learning attributes identified from the participants’ lived assessment experiences:
‘In high school, the teachers did not do the methods which are used here: class quiz and, for example, learner-centred approaches. I heard about it like now, this year … so, at high school, it was only talk and chalk. There were no other assessments that were used.’ (P7, First-year, Female)
‘Most of my teachers were teaching from the textbook without sharing real-life problems.’ (P3, First-year, Male)
‘During school, it was always just the normalised test, so … I was like, eish, assessments! … so now I have to go sit down and study again with everything.’ (P9, First-year, Female)
One of the adverse effects of these passive learning attributes was reported by P4, who expressed a fear of engaging during classroom learning and a dislike of passively receiving information. This is evident from the following quotation:
‘I would be afraid to ask questions because of how they’d [teachers would] demoralise other learners in class instead of making them understand.’ (P4, First-year, Female)
Discussion
The study aimed to compare first-year and final-year preservice science teachers’ regulatory responses to assessment beliefs and to assess the influence of these responses on their learning. The findings showed that the participating preservice science teachers had a variety of regulatory responses to assessment, with subtle differences between the two groups. For instance, both groups viewed assessment as having a dual purpose, with a first-year student describing it as a strategy for grading and learning, as shown in Table 1, which aligns with the summative and formative purposes. In contrast, a final-year student indicated that assessment is used to formally and informally assess students’ learning, as shown in Table 2, and that it serves both summative and formative purposes. The absence of marked differences between the first-year and final-year cohorts confirms the relative stability of orientations formed during the apprenticeship of observation (Lortie 1975), in which years of schooling as learners shape internal conceptual structures. The implications of these findings foreground assessment beliefs as psychological constructs that can be used to explore how assessment practices are interpreted and enacted through lived assessment experiences and how students approach their learning as a result of their beliefs about assessment.
Overall, most students in both groups exhibited regulatory responses aligned with positive emotions towards assessments, the value of assessment practices that support and improve learning and a view of assessment as supporting understanding. These students’ regulatory responses can be further conceptualised to reflect their beliefs about assessment, aligning more with the pedagogically supportive role of assessment. These regulatory responses were also supported by most students’ dissatisfaction with assessment experiences that relied on testing and examinations, which aligns with the societal role of assessment (see Table 1 and Table 2). The finding that most preservice teachers endorsed beliefs about assessment that support and improve learning confirms the work of Daniels and Poth (2017), who revealed that preservice teachers tend to prioritise the pedagogical supportive role of assessment over its societal or accountability functions. While previous research established links between assessment beliefs and educational outcomes (Brown 2022; Brown & Hirschfeld 2007), this study extends that work by documenting the specific regulatory processes through which these beliefs are enacted in preservice teachers’ lived assessment experiences. The findings showed that self-awareness of learning limitations, resourcefulness, the implementation of strategies, motivation and passive learning were themes that illuminated the influence of students’ regulatory responses to beliefs, aligning with the pedagogical supportive role of assessment in their learning. The themes of self-awareness of learning limitations, resourcefulness, intrinsic motivation and the implementation of strategies illustrate key principles of SDL. This finding suggests that students who perceive assessments as a means to improve learning and deepen understanding tend to engage in deep learning, as evidenced by the principles of SDL expressed by this cohort. The process of SDL, based on the seminal work of Knowles (1975), entails that the student sets goals, determines how progress will be assessed, defines the structure and sequence of activities and a timeline, identifies resources and seeks feedback. This process is similar to SRL, which involves students setting learning goals, implementing strategies to attain those goals, managing resources, extending efforts, responding to feedback and producing products (Yan & Carless 2022). Accordingly, the study contends that the ability to self-regulate one’s learning is associated with SDL and can be promoted in contexts that support it.
The implications of these findings for practice suggest that the principles of SDL, shaped by students’ regulatory responses to assessment beliefs, need to be broadened to encompass the full scope of SDL. This is because the students’ responses reflected only partial engagement with the SDL principles, as processes such as goal setting, planning, monitoring, control and reflection were not explicitly evident. To address this gap, closer attention should be paid to the mechanism, grounded in the theory of SRL, through which regulatory responses to assessment beliefs influence student learning, as illustrated in Figure 2.
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FIGURE 2: The mechanism of regulatory responses to assessment beliefs on learning. |
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Figure 2 illustrates the mechanism by which students’ regulatory responses to assessment beliefs affect students’ learning, as derived from the findings. This mechanism further extends Zimmerman’s (2002) model of SRL by offering assessment beliefs as a specific personal-psychological resource that mediates how students manage their cognition and motivation during their learning processes. To better understand the full scope to which the regulatory mechanism illustrated in Figure 2 shapes students’ learning, participants’ experiences will be mapped onto the three phases of Zimmerman’s (2002) SRL model, namely forethought, performance and self-reflection, which are discussed separately.
Forethought phase
The study identifies that preservice teachers’ learning trajectories begin in the forethought phase, where their internal assessment beliefs serve as a primary lens for interpreting tasks. For participants holding reform-based beliefs, this phase is characterised by a diagnostic regulatory response. This aligns with Zimmerman’s (2002) proposition that the forethought phase involves diagnosing learning needs and setting goals; however, our findings extend this by showing that preservice teachers use assessment as a mirror to trigger self-awareness of learning limitations. Applying this mechanism to consider ways to enhance the full scope of SDL among students requires that we view the interplay between assessment belief domains, regulatory responses and learning as bidirectional. For instance, a student’s ability to become self-aware of their learning limitations is a learning response to the cognitive belief that assessment is a means to check understanding, positive emotions towards assessment and the value of assessment as a tool to support learning. This illustrates an interplay among psychological-behavioural aspects.
Performance phase
The study finds that the diagnostic task interpretation from the forethought phase directly mediates the performance phase, in which students enact specific task strategies to manage cognitive demands. For participants holding reform-based beliefs, this phase is characterised by an active and agentic regulatory response. As this is evident, as students moved from diagnosing needs to taking action, they demonstrated resourcefulness and the application of learning strategies. This aligns with Zimmerman’s (2002) performance processes, which run parallel to SDL processes of seeking help and implementing task strategies. However, our findings extend this by illustrating that strategy use, such as the ‘PEE’ structure or brainstorming, is a deliberate effort to manage assessment demands by moving beyond rote memorisation towards critical reasoning. Applying this mechanism to enhance the full scope of SDL involves viewing the interaction between evaluative belief domains and learning strategies as bidirectional. For instance, a student’s resourcefulness manifested through research and peer engagement is a learning response to the evaluative belief that assessment is a means for deeper engagement and a cognitive belief that it assesses understanding. This illustrates a clear interplay among psychological-behavioural aspects.
Self-reflection phase
The self-regulatory cycle concludes with the self-reflection phase, where participants manage their affective reactions to performance and evaluate assessment outcomes. Our findings confirm the theory that participants experience satisfaction or dissatisfaction based on their performance. For participants influenced by a traditional schooling environment, this phase is often characterised by a maladaptive or extrinsic regulatory response. For instance, participants’ cognitive beliefs about assessment as testing and grading, and their negative emotions towards assessment and the value of assessment as a tool to demonstrate acquired knowledge, are, in part, shaped by the monotony of summative assessment experiences expressed by students, illustrating an interplay between environmental and psychological aspects. This aligns with Zimmerman’s (2002) proposition regarding students managing their emotions, such as satisfaction or dissatisfaction in response to performance. However, our findings extend this by documenting how students internalise extrinsic motivation to prioritise grades over skills when faced with high-stakes testing. Thus, enhancing SDL requires acknowledging that the link between these internal affective states and the broader learning environment is bidirectional. For instance, a participant’s extrinsic motivation and subsequent passive learning are a psychological-behavioural response to the environmental constraint of a dominant summative testing culture. However, the data challenge the assumption that summative assessment inherently produces maladaptive self-reflection. By documenting participants’ positive engagement with continuous summative assessment, the study reveals that graded tasks, when feedback-rich, can foster intrinsic motivation rather than the toxic anxiety typically predicted by the literature on summative cultures (see Atjonen 2014; Cimer & Cimer 2010; Klinger & Luce-Kapler 2008). Ultimately, this demonstrates that the self-reflection phase is a critical site for transformation, where shifting the environmental drivers from static grading to interactive, feedback-rich engagement can realign the environmental-psychological interplay to support more adaptive SDL processes.
Recommendations
Applying the mechanism illustrated in Figure 2, the full scope of students’ principles of SDL can be enhanced by strengthening either the psychological-behavioural aspects or the environmental-psychological aspects. For instance, environmental-psychological aspects can be strengthened by fostering students’ beliefs about assessment that support the pedagogical role of assessment, especially by emphasising and implementing reformed assessment approaches, such as assessment as learning and assessment for learning. These approaches have been shown to promote SDL by actively engaging students in monitoring, regulation and reflection on their learning (Harrison, O’Hara & McNamara 2015b; Nasri, Nasri & Abd Talib 2021; Sosibo 2019). Consequently, when students adopt beliefs about assessment that support the pedagogical role of assessments, their SDL processes are enhanced through corresponding regulatory responses to these beliefs, thereby strengthening the psychological-behavioural aspects. By applying these bidirectional mechanisms, future studies can continue to explore how the development of reformed assessment approaches can be fostered through SDL, as a personal student attribute, denoting behavioural-psychological interactions, and through SDL viewed as an environmental aspect, denoting environmental-psychological interactions. This is a much-needed inquiry in light of the findings that showed the influence of students’ regulatory responses to assessment beliefs on their SDL processes. Consequently, more attention should be paid to developing a framework to help us understand how SDL can, in turn, further support the development of beliefs about assessment that align with reformed assessment approaches.
Conclusion
The study has established that examining regulatory responses provides a unique analytical window that bridges the gap between assessment beliefs and learning behaviours. While students’ assessment beliefs represent internal predispositions and their learning reflects observable behaviours, the regulatory responses serve as the dynamic mediating mechanism that explains how the former is translated into the latter. By focusing on these responses, the researchers uncover the bidirectional interplay between a student’s personal-psychological domains and the environmental constraints of dominant summative testing cultures. This focus is essential because it reveals why even students who hold reform-based beliefs may still resort to passive learning when faced with high-stakes assessment demands. Thus, the focus on the process rather than the product of learning is what enables the study to propose meaningful, sustainable recommendations in teacher education that can enhance SDL processes. Specifically, these insights suggest that science teacher training must move beyond merely providing foundational interventionist spaces where these deeply ingrained regulatory orientations can be interrogated and reconstructed. However, the current study was limited in that it was not designed to evaluate other factors that influenced students’ learning, apart from the regulatory responses to assessment beliefs. In doing so, it may have limited the ability of the study to obtain a more holistic understanding of students’ learning processes. Secondly, owing to the qualitative nature of the study, the findings are not generalisable beyond the study sample. Despite these limitations, this study offers recommendations for enhancing students’ pedagogical beliefs about assessment and deeper learning processes, such as SDL. This can be achieved by strengthening bidirectional interactions that align with the mechanisms of students’ regulatory responses to beliefs congruent with the pedagogical role of assessment. The implications of strengthening these bidirectional interactions are particularly important in light of findings showing that the majority of first-year students enter teacher education training with negative emotions towards assessment, stemming from the traditional summative testing culture experienced during their school education. Consequently, regulatory responses to such beliefs lead to passive learning and extrinsic motivation, which limit the provision of opportunities to foster deeper learning processes such as SDL.
The same can be said of final-year students who did not demonstrate the full scope of SDL principles and of those who valued assessment as a tool to demonstrate acquired knowledge, despite the training they had received. These findings can be attributed to the summative components that remain in higher education, reinforcing the need to measure student learning to ensure that they meet graduation requirements. Ultimately, this underscores that bridging the gap between reform aspirations and classroom reality requires more than institutional exposure; science teacher education must become a transformative site where entrenched regulatory orientations are actively interrogated and reconstructed to cultivate the agentic, self-directed professional identities essential for contemporary science pedagogy. This shift is vital because only through the active deconstruction of the apprenticeship of observation can programmes move beyond the reproduction of passive learning cultures towards a fundamental and sustainable transformation of science teaching and learning.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on research originally conducted as part of Effiness H. Kamanga’s doctoral thesis titled ‘Exploring pre-service Natural Sciences teachers’ lived assessment experiences of assessment practices: Towards promoting positive assessment beliefs through self-directed learning’, submitted to the Faculty of Education, North-West University in 2025. The thesis is currently unpublished and not publicly available. The thesis was supervised by Anitia Lubbe. The thesis was reworked, revised and adapted into a journal article for publication. The author confirms that the content has not been previously published or disseminated and complies with ethical standards for original publication.
Competing interests
The authors, Effiness H. Kamanga and Anitia Lubbe, declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
CRediT authorship contribution
Effiness H. Kamanga: Conceptualisation, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology and Writing – original draft. Anitia Lubbe: Conceptualisation, Supervision, Validation and Writing – review & editing. All authors reviewed the article, contributed to the discussion of results, approved the final version for submission and publication and take responsibility for the integrity of its findings.
Funding information
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, Effiness H. Kamanga. The data are not publicly available due to ethical and confidentiality considerations, as they include qualitative interview responses from preservice teachers that could compromise participant anonymity. Anonymised excerpts of the data are included within the article. Access to additional data is subject to institutional ethical approval.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and are the product of professional research. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency or that of the publisher. The authors are responsible for this article’s results, findings and content.
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