Abstract
We assess the effect of automated formative evaluations on reading comprehension skills in a course of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in the area of kinesiology at the Universidad Austral de Chile – Valdivia (UACh). The evaluations were implemented using Questionmark's Perception (QMP) (QuestionmarkCorporation, 2015). We investigate: (1) Do formative reading comprehension assessments enhance students' reading comprehension skills? (2) How do students perceive QMP? The experimental design used for this study was pre-test/post-test with control group. The participants were 57 freshmen, kinesiology students from UACh, randomly divided into two groups: G1-experimental, G2-control. After the pre-test, G1 worked on 11 online reading comprehension modules, which included formative evaluations with automated immediate feedback, while G2 did the same work with printed materials. At the end, both groups took the same post-test. The results show that there were no statistically significant differences between the mean grade differences (post-test grade pre-test grade) of G1 and G2. G1’s surveys showed positive attitudes towards the use of automated formative evaluations. Our conclusions are that for our population, the use of computer technology was at least as effective as instruction without technology. Furthermore, QMP was satisfactorily 1. Computer Systems Consultant Universidad Austral de Chile, Chile; sglazzeri@yahoo.com 2. Facultad de Medicina Instituto de Medicina Universidad Austral de Chile, Chile; xcabezas@uach.cl 3. Facultad de Ciencias Economico-Administrativas Instituto de Estadistica Universidad Austral de Chile, Chile 4. Facultad de Medicina Escuela de Enfermeria Universidad Austral de Chile, Chile How to cite this article: Lazzeri, S., Cabezas, X., Ojeda, L., & Leiva, F. (2015). Automated formative evaluations for reading comprehension in an English as a foreign language course: benefits on performance, user satisfaction, and monitoring of higher education students in Chile. In F. Helm, L. Bradley, M. Guarda, & S. Thouesny (Eds), Critical CALL – Proceedings of the 2015 EUROCALL Conference, Padova, Italy (pp. 355-361). Dublin: Research-publishing. net. http://dx.doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2015.000358
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