Malaysian Instructors’ Assessment Beliefs in Tertiary ESL Classrooms
Abstract
Language assessment can be a valuable tool for providing information regarding language teaching. Given the importance of assessment that has undergone much change, there are important issues that warrant investigation, particularly those related to language instructors. Understanding the assessment beliefs of ESL instructors, especially at the tertiary level, is important since it can help improve the quality of assessment practices as well. Therefore, this study investigated English language instructors’ assessment beliefs in the Malaysian context. This study adopted a cross-sectional research design. The survey method was utilized to collect data from six Malaysian universities using a purposive sampling strategy. English language instructors (n=83) were selected via purposive sampling for the study. Findings of the study revealed that English language instructors believed that the purpose of assessment was to improve teaching and learning. Regarding the assessment beliefs that are related to the assessment purposes, analyses of data showed that the items that received the highest percentage of agreement were diagnosing strength and weaknesses in students, providing information about students’ progress and providing feedback to students as they learn, respectively. Although they reported using both formal and informal assessment of their students’ work, English language instructors relied heavily on paper and pencil assessment while giving more weightage on formative assessment. The majority of English language instructors reported employing marking schemes for the courses they taught, carrying out sample marking and providing feedback. Finally, English language instructors reported using different types of assessments for every language skill taught in their language unit/center. The findings highlight the fact that English instructors should be more empowered in their role as the assessors of students. Their knowledge about what, how, when to assess should be developed through long professional development courses; one-shot workshops or seminars would not be enough to improve instructors’ assessment literacy.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Barnes, N., Fives, H. & Dacey, C.M. (2015). Teachers’ beliefs about assessment. In H. Fives & M. G. Gill (Eds.), International handbook of research on teachers’ beliefs (pp. 284-300). London: Routledge.
Brindley, G. (2001). Language assessment and professional development. In C. Elder, A. Brown, E. Grove, K. Hill, N. Iwashita, T. Lumley, T. McNamara & K. O'Loughlin (Eds.), Experimenting with uncertainty: Essays in honour of Alan Davies (Vol. 11, pp. 137-143). Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press.
Brown, G.T.L., & Harris, L.R. (2009). Unintended consequences of using tests to improve learning: How improvement-oriented resources heighten conceptions of assessment as school accountability. Journal of Multidisciplinary Evaluation, 6 (12), 68-91.
Brown, G.T.L., Lake, R., & Matters, G. (2009). Assessment policy and practice effects on New Zealand and Queensland teachers’ conceptions of teaching. Journal of Education for Teaching, 35, 61-75.
Brown, G.T.L., Lake, R., & Matters, G. (2011). Queensland teachers’ conceptions of assessment: The impact of policy priorities on teacher attitudes. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 210-220.
Brown, G. T., & Remesal, A. (2012). Prospective teachers' conceptions of assessment: A cross-cultural comparison. The Spanish journal of psychology, 15(01), 75-89.
Cheng, L., & Wang, X. (2007). Grading, Feedback, and Reporting in ESL/EFL Classrooms. Language Assessment Quarterly, 4(1), 85-107. doi: 10.1080/15434300701348409.
Cheng, L., Rogers, T., & Hu, H. (2004). ESL/EFL instructors’ classroom assessment practices: Purposes, methods, and procedures. Language Testing, 21(3), 360-389.
Cheng, L., Rogers, T., & Wang, X. (2008). Assessment purposes and procedures in ESL/EFL classrooms. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(1), 9-32.
Cizek, G., Fitzgerald, R., & Rachor, R. (1995). Teacher’s assessment practices: Preparation, isolation and the kitchen sink. Educational Assessment, 3(2), 159-179.
Graham, P. (2005). Classroom-based assessment: Changing knowledge and practice through preservice teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 607-621.
Groves, R. M., Fowler, F. J., Couper, M. P., Lepkowski, J. M., Singer, E., & Tourangeau, R. (2009). Survey methodology (2nd ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Harris, L. R. & Brown, G. T. L., (2009). The complexity of teachers’ conceptions of assessment: Tensions between the needs of schools and students. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 16, 365-381.
Holroyd, C. (2000). Are assessors professional? Active Learning in Higher Education, 1(1), 28-44.
Johnson, B., & Christensen, L. (2012). Educational Research: Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Mukundan, J., & Ahour, T. (2009). Perceptions of Malaysian school and university ESL instructors on writing assessment. Journal Sastra Inggris, 9 (1), 1-21.
Muñoz, A. P., Palacio, M., & Escobar, L. (2012). Teachers' beliefs about assessment in an EFL context in Colombia. Profile Issues in Teachers’ Professional Development, 14(1), 143-158.
Norizan Md Nor, Noriah Mohamed, Hasuria Che Omar & Ruslan Rainis. (2010). The Direction and Future of Higher Education in Malaysia. In Z. Moris (Ed.), 50 Years of Higher Education Development in Malaysia (1957-2007). (National Higher Education Research Institute, Universiti Science Malaysia, Trans.).
Postareff, L., Virtanen, V., Katajavuori, N., & Lindblom-Ylänne, S. (2012). Academics’ conceptions of assessment and their assessment practices. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 38(3), 84-92.
Remesal, A., & Brown, G. T. (2015). Conceptions of assessment when the teaching context and learner population matter: compulsory school versus non-compulsory adult education contexts. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 30(3), 331-347.
Rogers, T., Cheng, L., & Hu, H. (2007). ESL/EFL instructors’ beliefs about assessment and evaluation. Canadian and International Education/Education canadienne et internationale, 36(1), 39-61.
Shohamy, E., Inbar-Lourie, O., & Poehner, M. (2008). Investigating assessment perceptions and practices in the advanced foreign language classroom. Report n, 1108.
White, E. (2009). Are you assessment literate? Some Fundamental Questions Regarding Effective Classroom-based Assessment. OnCUE Journal, 3(1), 3-25.
Xu, Y., & Liu, Y. (2009). Teacher assessment knowledge and practice: A narrative inquiry of a Chinese college EFL teacher's experience. Tesol Quarterly, 43(3), 493-513.
Yang, T. (2011). Tertiary EFL Teachers’ Classroom Assessment Practices. International Journal of Learning, 18(3), 1-8.
Zubairi, A. M., Sarudin, I. H., & Nordin, M. S. (2008). Faculty competency in assessment. In Annual Conference of the Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA), UK: Cambridge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.5n.2p.29
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
![Creative Commons License](http://licensebuttons.net/l/by/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
2013-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.
International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies
You may require to add the 'aiac.org.au' domain to your e-mail 'safe list’ If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox'. Otherwise, you may check your 'Spam mail' or 'junk mail' folders.