Assessment of Conative Constructs for Educational Research and Evaluation: A Catalogue

In recent years, an overabundance of psychological constructs and their associated measures have been presented by educational researchers and program evaluators. Among the most interesting and potentially useful of these constructs are those reflecting motivational and volitional aspects of human behavior, called “conative constructs.” Among the constructs in this category are: need for achievement and fear of failure, beliefs about one’s own abilities and their development, feelings of self-esteem and self-efficacy, attitudes about particular subject-matter learning, and many others. This catalogue brings together in one place those conative constructs that seem most promising as useful for future research and evaluation work in education. For each catalogued construct, the authors provide a brief review covering construct definition, theoretical base, assessment procedures, references, and where possible, study abstracts evaluating assessment instruments or otherwise bearing on appropriate construct validation.