Making Learning Real: Design Principles and Evidence for Applied Learning in Schools
Category: Student Learning
Instrument Overview
Expert Notes AvailableView expert commentary on strengths and cautions for this instrument
Strengths
Designed specifically to assess test-taking effort and perceived importance, helping researchers interpret performance on low-stakes assessments. Validated with diverse U.S. 10th graders, including ELL students, with evidence that scores function similarly across language groups.
Cautions
Recent research supports the Effort subscale more strongly than Importance. Scores should not be interpreted as direct measures of students’ academic motivation or ability.
The Student Opinion Scale (SOS) is a brief self-report survey designed to measure students’ motivation and effort when completing a test or other assessment. It focuses on whether students are engaged in the assessment process and whether they put forth sufficient effort to make their test performance meaningful.
The SOS can be used in education research and assessment settings to identify whether low test performance may be related to insufficient effort or motivation. It is typically administered immediately after an assessment and can help researchers examine the validity of test scores, particularly in low-stakes testing situations.
Organization
Topic
Collection Category(ies)
Content
Grades
Post secondary
Languages
English
Respondent
Student
Administration Information
Length
10 items
Access and Use
Price
Free
Open Access
Yes
Psychometrics (additional guidance)
Reliability
Importance: .82 (Cronbach's alpha)
Effort: .86 (Cronbach's alpha)
Item Type
Likert
