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The Role of Fairness and Basic Psychological Needs in Understanding Dyslexic Students’ Emotions in Classroom Assessment

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Lia Daniels discusses associations amongst perceived fairness, three basic psychological needs, and six discrete emotions in the domain of classroom assessment.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 21, 2024

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This video video discusses a research study focused on students with dyslexia, highlighting the need for better understanding of their experiences during assessments. The study is led by Dr. Lauren Gogan, who has a strong interest in learning disabilities. It emphasizes that while accommodations such as extended time and note-takers are essential for equal opportunity in assessments, these provisions often overlook the psychological experiences of students, such as emotions and basic psychological needs.

The research is grounded in self-determination theory, which identifies three universal psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The study reveals that the perception of fairness in assessments significantly correlates with the fulfillment of these psychological needs. If students perceive assessments as fair, they feel more autonomous and competent, which in turn positively affects their emotions, leading to greater enjoyment and reduced anxiety.

The research also points out the challenges of obtaining a large sample size from specific populations, like students with dyslexia, which has historically limited in-depth studies in this area. However, this study successfully recruited 100 participants quickly through an online platform.

The findings suggest that enhancing assessment experiences for students with dyslexia requires focusing not just on accommodations but also on emotional support and psychological principles. The study advocates for reframing summative assessments to ensure they satisfy students' psychological needs, thereby promoting their well-being. Future research aims to provide experimental evidence that supports changes in assessment practices to positively impact students' emotional experiences during testing.

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We chose to work with students with dyslexia to start

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with, that particular question,

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because the second author on this paper, Dr.

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Lauren Gogan, who was my postdoc at the time,

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has a real interest in students with dyslexia

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and learning disabilities more broadly.

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And they are the largest group

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of students on university campuses

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with a specific learning disability.

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Um, so dyslexia involves processing issues with,

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phonology word sounds word structure.

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And so it can create spaces where students,

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have difficulties with reading, with writing,

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with executive functioning and planning.

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Um, and in regards to assessment in particular,

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the primary focus for students with dyslexia, has been

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to ensure that they have sufficient accommodations,

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appropriate accommodations, so readers, scribes,

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note takers, extended time, those types of things to ensure

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that the playing ground becomes level

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and they can do their very best on assessment.

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And that's great. We have wonderful legislation here in

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Canada and in many countries, across the world to ensure

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that students, have access

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to these type of accommodations.

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But that negates or forgets

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or ignores sort of this psychological experience

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that students have when they participate in assessment,

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which is something that,

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because we've been so focused on accommodating students

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with dyslexia, we've sort of forgotten

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that they're still people in going into these assessments,

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and who may have other things that need

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to be satisfied aside from just accommodations.

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So that's where the role

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of basic psychological needs comes in

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and the role of emotions.

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So recognizing that assessments have a lot of ups

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and downs, high positive or low positive emotions

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and high negative emotions in these situations

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that accommodations just aren't related to,

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and basic psychological needs might be.

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So let me tell you what basic psychological needs are.

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Those come from, self-determination theory,

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which is Rich Ryan and Ed VC's.

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Um, theory, it's been around for a couple decades now.

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Um, and basic psychological needs are a sub theory of that,

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which basically say

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that there are three basic psychological needs

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that are essentially universal.

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Um, the need for autonomy, the need for competence,

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and the need for relatedness.

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So autonomy is feeling like, we are in control

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of what's going on in our lives, that sort of,

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our actions originate from within us as a person as opposed

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to being imposed upon us by others.

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Competence is that we're making good progress

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towards the goals that we have.

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And relatedness is this sense of, being cared for

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and being in safe relationships.

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So, as I already said, for dyslexia,

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we haven't really looked at any

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of these constructs in a dyslexic, sample.

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There, there has been very little sort of theory driven

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and statistically oriented work with students,

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with dyslexia.

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And in part that's because it's been very difficult

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to secure a large enough sample

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to do some of that type of work.

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So, Dr.

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Gogan and this study in particular have made a huge

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advancement by bringing sort of theory, into the study

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of, of dyslexic students.

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I've been studying emotions,

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students' emotions at post-secondary, institutions

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for more than 20 years.

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Um, and really sort of started to narrow in on,

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emotions in sort of like the last seven years

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or so, becoming interested in this space

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of not only test anxiety,

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but other emotions that students, might experience.

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So in this study, for example, we consider, anxiety,

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but also anger and hopelessness.

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And then we also considered positive emotions

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of enjoyment, relief, and pride.

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Now, almost all of my work

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and much of the work on achievement emotions follows

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reinhard, prins control value theory of emotions.

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I would, suggest people check out his 2006,

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foundational paper in that area.

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And the notion is that students experience these emotions

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based on how they cognitively

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appraise whatever they're experiencing.

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So in a testing situation, students sit down,

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they take a test, and as they start

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to experience answers going right

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or they start to experience answers going wrong,

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they cognitively appraise, is something good happening here?

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Am I in control?

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Am I feeling my autonomy supported or am I not?

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Um, and when, when we're not, then we end up

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with these negative emotions,

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and when we are, we end up with the positive emotions.

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I've paired basic psychological needs with these emotions

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because basic psychological needs in the literature are

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essentially a nutrient for wellbeing.

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And at its core, student wellbeing is characterized

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by the presence of positive emotions

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and the absence of negative emotions,

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which is why we've selected what we have here.

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As I alluded to earlier, one of the limitations with working

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with specific populations with learning disabilities such

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as students with dyslexia, is that it's very difficult to,

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to obtain large samples.

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And so this, dataset actually was recruited

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through prolific, which is an online, repository

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where individuals sign up to essentially take surveys,

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and be remunerated for their participation.

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So there's a large set of screeners in prolific

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where people can indicate things such as having,

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dyslexia or various other learning disabilities.

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And so this was a place where we were able

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to quite efficiently access people,

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who self-disclose, dyslexia,

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and there's researchers who would suggest that

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that's an insufficient, way

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to detect dyslexia, but we're okay with it.

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Um, and, and it allowed us to get a sample

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of 100 participants in less than 12 hours

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With no missing data.

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Um, and so that is just a huge advancement, in terms

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of being able to work with this population.

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They took, one, one correlational survey for us,

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which included the skills

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that we were interested in in this study.

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So the first,

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result I wanna share is just a descriptive one.

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So the one variable we haven't talked about at all,

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yet is this is a notion of fairness.

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So we hypothesized that fairness.

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So a perception of fairness would be sort of a prerequisite

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to students being able to perceive

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that their basic psychological needs had been satisfied.

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So if you think your teacher's out to get you,

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if the test has errors, if it, is culturally insensitive

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or you experience racism

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or any of those type of things in the assessments

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that you're completing, that's going to distract or,

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or reduce your sense of fairness.

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And so 41% of the students in this sample, so

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that's 41 people, disagreed

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or strongly disagreed that assessment was fair.

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So that would be after having been able

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to receive their accommodations, working in all of

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that legislative space, we still have almost half

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of the sample saying assessments still not fair.

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So that's really important

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because then it opens up the space for some

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of these psychological variables

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to hold greater relevance in, in what's going on.

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So we indeed found that that perception of fairness,

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which is a socially constructed construct, we can't sort

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of say like, here you go, this is a fair assessment.

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Uh, it's going to be received by students

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and interpreted through their own histories.

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That perception of fairness was positively associated

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with satisfaction of all three basic psychological needs.

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So if they thought an assessment was fair,

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they felt more autonomous, they felt more competent,

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and they felt in better relation with their instructor.

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Then from those basic psychological needs,

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we found really interesting connections to the emotions.

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So autonomy, that sense of originating from yourself

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and having choice, was positively associated

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with experiencing more enjoyment

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and negatively associated with anxiety.

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So when we give students choice, within assessment

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and help them feel empowered,

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they experience more enjoyment and less anxiety.

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Competence was the other big mover

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and competence was positively associated with,

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pride and relief.

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So there's this space where now

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that I'm making good progress, I'm moving towards my goals,

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I'm able to experience this assessment, with pride

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and to feel relieved that it's done

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and move on to, to my next thing.

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This is the first study

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that has paired basic psychological needs

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with emotions in assessment and basic psychological needs.

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All they've though, they've been around along

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and they have a huge presence in instructional literature,

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they have been sorely ignored in assessment.

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Um, and I should say this particular study

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and all of my work is focused specifically

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on summative assessment.

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So in most of the assessment literature, when people

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Start to make recommendations about how

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to better support student emotions

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or how to motivate students

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or those types of things, the first recommendation is

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to reduce the focus on summative assessment or,

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and move towards formative things, things that have lots

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of feedback that don't have grades

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that just take the stress magically away.

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But my problem with that,

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and my assertion in this particular paper

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and in subsequent papers, that I've written, is that

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that gives summative assessment like a, an escape like it,

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it just ignores it.

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And so instead of actually wrestling our way through this,

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this experience that students have over and over

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and over again, we're just saying, okay, well yeah,

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you're gonna have to do that.

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Um, but do these other things to make things feel better.

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Or we find that people start taking really bad approaches

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to summative assessment.

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So lots of really non rigorous or

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or decisions about summative assessment that undermine sort

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of their validity and our ability to make the type

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of inferences that we need from summative assessment.

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So I say this because this is tackling the beast.

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This is tackling the space where you get your grades,

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not all the stuff alongside it.

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And so our take homes here are that students don't just have

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to learn how to cope or manage their own anxiety.

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There actually are psychological principles

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that we could consistently use to reframe

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summative assessment, any summative assessment.

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I'm currently working on a study to show that we could,

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in an experimental study, that if we make changes

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to just multiple choice tests,

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to better support students' basic psychological needs,

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we can try and reduce the anxiety

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and increase the enjoyment of that testing environment

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because we're taking the psychological principle

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and we're putting it first.

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We're saying we have to have this type of assessment.

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People are still gonna give multiple choice tests,

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but instead of ignoring that there could be,

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satisfaction of basic psychological needs in this situation,

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we're saying, what if we did, what if we tried

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to really intentionally do that?

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And so that's the direction of, of future research here.

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This is one of a handful of baseline studies that we did

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that show this type of association, that show

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that basic psychological needs are low

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for students in assessment.

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And when they look a little bit better,

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we get positive associations with indicators of wellbeing.

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So now we're building the intervention

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and collecting the experimental evidence to show

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that there's things that we can do

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to support basic psychological needs,

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even in summative assessment

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and nudge students towards greater wellbeing.

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