Student perspectives on seemingly maladaptive examples of assessment agency: Types and causes

This paper explores students’ perspectives on potentially maladaptive forms of assessment agency, where actions undermine learning and assessment integrity. Drawing on theories of self-regulated learning and conceptions of agency, it analyzed data from seven focus groups with New Zealand school students (n=46) and 108 interviews with Australian undergraduate students. Students described three potentially maladaptive assessment actions: Assessment dishonesty, Purposeful underperformance, and Doing it alone, which were done to protect ego and/or relationships; to strategic prioritize resources; and to maximize return for minimum effort. These data show students may resist or undermine assessment practices for a range of justifiable reasons, often related to the assessment’s context, the way the teacher implements it, or the classroom environment.