Introduction

Student conceptions about assessment may be positive or negative, exemplify various beliefs and expectations and are hypothesized to relate to student outcomes, e.g. grades. Currently in its 6^th version, the Students’ Conception of Assessment (SCoA-VI; Brown, Peterson, & Irving, 2009) Inventory was developed to capture the extent of student agreement with the nature and purposes of assessment (Brown, 2011). It comprises four conceptions: assessment for improving learning and teaching, for external accountability purposes, assessment as an affective and social activity, and as a negative practice.

Objectives

The purpose of the current study was (a) to examine the factorial a sample of Gymnasium students in Cyprus, (b) to test if a well-fitting model is invariant for males and females, and (c) to study the predictive validity of the SCoA-VI factors with language grades as the criterion, accounting for the influence of gender and school year.

Methodology

The sample consisted of 599 7^th- to 9^th-grade students randomly selected from eleven Gymnasiums in Cyprus. Demographic questions and the 33-item SCoA-VI were included in a questionnaire completed by the students in-class. Responses were given on a 6-point, positively-packed scale with two disagreement and four agreement options. Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .85.

Results

Among three alternative confirmatory factor analysis models, acceptable fit was found for a bifactorial model with one general and four specific factors relating to student improvement, external motives, affective and negative conceptions. Weak measurement invariance was supported with respect to gender. Assessment for student improvement and the negative conception significantly predicted language grades. Gender and school year were correlated with assessment conceptions.

Conclusions

Findings provide validity evidence for the SCoA-VI Inventory and suggest that conceptions about assessment can be adaptive or maladaptive and are linked to achievement outcomes.