Education Policy Commons^™

The Effects Of Grading Practices On Motivations For Learning At The Middle School Level, Justin D. Stebbins Ms

Muskie School Dissertations

The objective of this quantitative survey study was to measure the effect grading traditionally (using averaging) versus non-traditionally (best, most recent evidence) on four types of student motivation. These types of motivation were mastery orientation (learning for learning sake), performance orientation (going for the grade or external recognition), performance avoidance (not wanting to appear incompetent), and mastery avoidance (not wanting to lose what you have). This set of orientations is derived from the goal orientation theory.

In this study, 1,652 students and 93 educators between four schools took an anonymous 20-minute online survey. Due to lack of teacher participation, two …

Marginalized Stakeholders And Performative Politics: Dueling Discourses In Education Policymaking, Celina Su

Publications and Research

American urban education policy debates pivot around dueling lines of discourse on what ails inner-city youth; such students are portrayed as emblems of a largely African-American and Latino ‘culture of failure’, even as their voices remain largely absent from debates about them. In response, youth-led organizations attempt to forward youth as political stakeholders. I draw upon ethnographic data from two such organizations to examine the performative aspects of their campaign work. I focus on how they engaged in (1) counter-scripting, to imagine themselves as political stakeholders and substantively prepare themselves for their new roles, and in (2) counter-staging, to gain …