Students tend to take a strategic approach to assessment.
They understandably channel their energies into obtaining the best public statement of what they have achieved in a course of study. They tend to work harder on those aspects of the subject which are part of the formal assessment. This does not mean that teachers should not try to develop in students a genuine interest in learning for its own sake. As Rowntree puts it, assessment can 'be used as one side of a carrot-stick inducement system', with the other side being the teacher's efforts to make the course interesting and personally meaningful and relevant to students. But using assessment to motivate students to learn is no simple exercise.