Review of Related Literatures

Academic Performance

Academic performance is the measured achievements of the students across

different academic subjects. Teachers and education officials typically measures the

student’s achievement using classroom performance, grades, graduation rates, and

scores from the standardized tests (Ballotpedia).

The purpose of the academic performance is to reach an educational goal.

There are several components of performance. These are educational procedures

supported by the school that entail changing one's current condition into a new one

while maintaining integrity in an alternative unit that includes both cognitive and

structural components. Performance varies according to circumstances, organic and

environmental conditions that determine skills and experiences (Lamas, 2015).

Related Studies

A. Academic Performance

According to Caballero et al. academic performance requires meeting

certain goals, achievements or objectives set in a program, course or fields of

subjects. These are expressed through grades which are the outcome of the

assessment such as tests or exam that involves passing or not passing the

subjects or courses. On their part, Torres and Rodriguez they define academic

performance as the level of knowledge shown in subject compared to the norm,

and it is usually measured using GPA or grade point average. On another study
 argued by Marti, said that academic performance involves different factors like

the intellectual level, personality, motivation, skills, interests, study habits, self-

esteem or even the teacher-student relationship. When a student's actual

performance differs from their expected performance in the classroom, it refers to

a diverging performance. Bad academic performance is achieved when it is

below the expected performance. And sometimes academic performance can be

analogous to the teaching methods that the teachers are using for the students

(Lamas, 2015).

I. Grades

In this study, they compared the student’s motivation that received

pass/fail grade and an end-of-course narrative evaluation were given multi-

interval grades. In result, grades did not cultivate academic motivation, instead

grades develop anxiety and develop a possibility of avoiding tasks or challenges

at school. On the other hand, narrative assessments promoted cooperation

among students, trusted teachers, and met basic psychological needs while also

increasing motivation by offering useful feedback. Students in institutions using

narrative evaluations showed better levels of intrinsic and autonomous motivation

than students receiving multi-interval grades, even after controlling for possible

confounding variables. Re-evaluating when and in which programs grades may

be acceptable or essential is something that institution should do in light of the

potential for grades to impede basic psychological needs and academic

motivation (Chamberlin, et al., 2018).

 When receiving grades or report card is psychologically important for a lot

of students and can cause a range of affective reactions. Both at the beginning of

secondary school and six months later, behavioral and emotional participation

was assessed. Students' positive and negative affective responses to their first

secondary school report card were evaluated halfway through this term. The

expected outcome, lower report card grades predicted lower emotional and

behavorial engagement, when controlling for prior levels of engagement. It

correlates to student’s mediated reaction, students who perceived the

performance norms in their class to be high were more affectively reactive to

their grades, which resulted in a stronger indirect effect of grades via negative

effect on emotional engagement. Complementing the traditional view that grades

are consequences of school engagement, the current findings suggest that

grades function also as antecedents of school engagement (Poorthuis, et al.,

2015).

II. Scores Result

The idea that teachers have a crucial role in promoting students' learning

has gained widespread acceptance. Numerous empirical studies have examined

the effects of specific teacher attributes in an attempt to explain differences in

student performance. However, despite the fact that the majority of the empirical

data on this topic has appeared in the last ten years, this topic has not been the

focus of a systematic review in over a decade. This article offers a current review

that differentiates between acquired and socio-demographic teacher traits based

on empirical findings from multiple nations. This analysis validates the

widespread agreement that student performance is favorably correlated with

subject-related degrees and knowledge, not general teacher certifications. This is

especially true for master's degrees in math and science. A new insight is that

recent findings point out that teacher experience continues to contribute to

student test scores throughout a teacher's career, instead of merely the first few

years. An important future research avenue would be to examine which

mechanisms can explain these teacher characteristic effects (Coenen, et al.,

2017).

Legislators and administrators from all across the world have relied on

standardized test results as their main tool to assess the impact of education on

students and to gather information for improving curriculum development and

school system management. This is because test results are generally regarded

as a trustworthy measure of student aptitude (1, 2). The No Child Left Behind Act

and Race to the Top in the United States are two examples of education policies

that frequently draw inspiration from these examinations, which have actually

become an essential component of the educational process. Because of this, test

results are increasingly being used to evaluate (and pay) administrators,

superintendents, instructors, and students. A test assesses a student’s

knowledge base in academic subjects, such as science, reading, or

mathematics. When taking a standardized test, the substance of the test, its

administration, and scoring procedures are the same for all takers (3). Identical

tests, with identical degrees of difficulty and same grading methods, are
 propagated as the most fair, objective, and unbiased means of assessing how

the student progress in learning (Sieversten, et al., 2016).

III. Performance Tasks

According to Lepper et al., and Ratelle et al. autonomous and controlled

motivation can be both occur at the same time, due to working on a task that is

interesting and can benefit the student’s relation to the teacher and can achieve

good grades and better academic performance. With this, it enables them to

apply a process perspective to the study of student’s motivation inside the

classrooms. As student’s motivation have been shown to be related to their

academic performance and task focused behaviour. According to SDT Self-

determination theory, proposed by Deci and Ryan (1985 & 2000) there are

different kinds of motivation that are based on its level of self-determination and

can affect the behaviors of the students. The most common types of SDT are

autonomous and controlled motivation, which determines motivation as a

continuum between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Whether it is doing

something interesting (intrinsic motivation) or doing it because it is ordered and

having a feeling of being controlled with rewards or punishment (extrinsic

motivation). There are other studies that prove the relation between motivation

and different student’s results have shown that autonomous motivation should be

implemented in school. Students who have driven by autonomous motivation

those who are intrigued or interested, have shown to achieve higher grades, to

learn more, having positive emotions towards school and a feeling of satisfied in
contrast to those who are piqued by controlled motivation. Autonomous

motivation is an important form of motivation, mostly in learning situations

student’s tasks or activities in school are not driven by pure motivation or by

interest but rather it is controlled motivation that are directed by teachers

(Malemberg, et al. 2015).

According to Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı [MEB], a new curriculum have been

published for the opportunity of the student’s to show their skills, knowledge and

attitude through multi-type assessment. In regards of showing the student’s skills,

knowledge, critical thinking and performance it is impossible for summative

assessment to carry this, so they adopted alternative assessment that mentions

the importance of performance assessment in the new curriculum, and assesses

the student’s performance in a certain subject. On another study, some teachers

are having difficulty in deciding the performance tasks in the applied subject, in a

semi-structured interview. A great number of teachers claimed that they had

difficulty in “determining appropriate subject for the students’ level (intelligence)”.

Because some performance tasks they proposed in the class, does not include

all of the students because of their comprehension and intelligence’s level

especially the “low-level” students cannot do it properly. On another problem,

teachers have the most important role for the implementation of performance

tasks in classroom. Teachers have to interfere the student’s learning

environment when needed in order to assess performance tasks effectively. As a

result of observations, it is understood that teachers cannot interfere the students

and learning environment effectively while implementing the performance tasks.

 In addition to this, it was seen that teachers did not have willing to motivate the

students. Also, teachers did not give feedbacks to the students about their

previously prepared performance tasks in order to see which part is missing or

what should be developed (METİN, Ph.D., 2013).

References:

Academic performance. Ballotpedia. Retrieved from:

https://ballotpedia.org/Academic_performance. (November 18, 2023)

Chamberlin, K., Yasue, M., & Chiang, C. A. (2018). The impact of grades on student
motivation. Sage Journals. Retrieved from:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1469787418819728. (November
19, 2023).

Coenen, J., Cornelisz, I., Groot, W., Van den Brink, H. M., & Klaveren, C. V., (2017).
Teacher characteristics and their effects on students test scores: a systematic
review. Journal of Economic Surveys. 32(3), 848-877. Retrieved from:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-44658-001. (November 19, 2023).

Lamas, H. A. (2015). School performance. ARTÍCULOS DE REVISIÓN. 3 (1), 353-354.

Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1135350.pdf. (November 18,
2023).

Malemberg, L. E., Pakarinen, E., Vasalampi, K., & Nurmi, J. E. (2015). Student’s schoo
performance, task-focus, and situation-specific motivation. Science Direct. 158-
167. Retrieved from:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959475215300050.
(November 18, 2023).

METİN, M. (2013). Teacher’s difficulties in preparation and implementation in

performance task. Educational Science: Theory & Practice. 13(3), 1667-1670.
Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1017658.pdf. (November 19,
2023).

Poorthuis, A. M. G., Juvonen, J., Thomaes, S., Denissen, J. J. A., Orobio de Castro, B.,
& van Aken, M. A. G. (2015). Do grades shape students’ school engagement?
The psychological consequences of report card grades at the beginning of
secondary school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(3), 842–
 854. Retrieved from: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-44658-001. (November
19, 2023).

Sievertsen, H. H., Gino, F., & Piovesan, M. (2016). Cognitive fatigue influences
students’performance onstandardized tests. PNAS. 113(10), 2621. Retrieved
from: https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.1516947113. (November 19,
2023).