Primed for success: How the Auburn Creed can improve student motivation in institutional assessments

A beloved set of values that captures the spirit of Auburn University — known as the Auburn Creed — is not only a mantra for good living but could lead to enhanced assessments involving learning outcomes and program effectiveness at Auburn.

It all centers around assessment tests that students take at this time of year, such as those administered through Auburn’s Achieve the Creed course, and the way in which prompts are posed – specifically if the words of the Auburn Creed are incorporated.

Researchers from Auburn and James Madison University, or JMU, are exploring how priming interventions, specifically prompts that incorporate the question-behavior effect, can enhance student effort on assessments and ultimately improve their performance. Used throughout psychology, the question-behavior effect, or QBE, highlights the role of prompting a participant before they complete an assessment. The theory suggests that by asking a person a question about their intended behavior, that question ultimately influences their actions.

Through a collaboration between Stuart Miller, assistant director in the Office of Academic Insight and Sara Finney, associate director for Student Affairs Assessment at JMU, published in the Nov. /Dec. edition of Assessment Update, the two researchers are exploring student motivation in low-stakes assessments. Specifically, their research provides new insights into how universities can encourage students to engage more deeply with institutional assessments, helping them understand their importance and connecting them to their abilities.

“Having students give their best effort on something with low stakes is difficult to achieve because there is no immediate pay-off for them in the moment- no grade, prize or recognition,” Miller said. “But what if you could shift a student’s mindset just by priming them with a few questions? If the goal is to collect the best possible data to analyze, why wouldn’t you try it?”

By engaging more than 2,200 seniors enrolled in Auburn’s Achieve the Creed course during spring 2023, Miller and his colleagues explored how various prompts could potentially impact student motivation before completing a low-stakes assessment. Students were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a control group with no questions, a group with positive self-identity questions and a group with questions aligned with the Auburn Creed.

Results from their study suggest that those students who received self-identity priming questions (e.g., “As a conscientious test-taker, I will engage in good effort throughout the test”) reported increases in their self-reported effort, while those who received the Creed-related questions (e.g., “As someone who believes in hard work, I will persist to the completion of the test”) actually spent more time completing their assessments.

“Knowing that the Auburn Creed means something to our students, infusing that Creed-specific language into our pre-test prompts gave us an opportunity to build upon the previous narrative - could we replicate the previous studies but also take it one step further,” Miller added.

Although neither type of priming question significantly boosted students’ overall performance, the results showed that these questions reduced performance disparities among different student cohorts, including ethnic and socio-economic groups. By highlighting the benefits of the question-behavior effect in enhancing assessment data, the findings can help other institutions create a more equitable testing environment and optimize resource allocation by providing more reliable data, especially for smaller universities facing increasing costs associated with administering the assessments.

This past summer, Miller and Finney showcased their findings at the inaugural International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education in Berlin, Germany. Sponsored by The Assessment Institute in Indianapolis, part of the Center for Leading Improvements in Higher Education at Indiana University Indianapolis, the conference provides a platform for newcomers and seasoned leaders in higher education assessment to explore trends and best practices.

The second International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education will occur June 22-25, 2025, in Bangkok, Thailand. Miller encourages any Auburn faculty and staff interested in submitting proposals or learning more about proposal criteria to visit the conference website for more information.

"Although a few faculty and staff from Auburn had the opportunity to present their work at this summer’s conference, it would be wonderful to highlight and share even more of the outstanding assessment efforts taking place across our campus," Miller said.

To learn more about priming interventions in assessment practices or about Miller and Finney’s study, contact Stuart Miller at samiller@auburn.edu.