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.
Highlights
In the Malaysian educational context, higher education institutions have developed various programs for their undergraduates and postgraduates to contribute to the nation
The analysis of the data from the first section of the questionnaire revealed that the English language instructors believed that assessment should be used for different purposes, which are discussed in the following related subsections
The overall mean of 3.36 and standard deviation of .49 shown in Table 1 indicate that the majority of the respondents seemed to have positive beliefs/views towards using assessment to inform instruction
Summary
In the Malaysian educational context, higher education institutions have developed various programs for their undergraduates and postgraduates to contribute to the nation. An instructor’s assessment knowledge and competence can be influencing factors in undermining or encouraging students’ learning in the classroom With such a prominent role, assessment and testing issues have begun to witness increasing emphasis in the agenda of higher educational institutions around the world. It has become increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that higher educational institutions have introduced a variety of testing and assessment procedures in order to make decisions on selection, clarification and achievement (Brindley, 2001) These procedures range from the use of IJELS 5(2): 29-46, 2017 standardized proficiency tests to outcome-based learning systems, which require university instructors to report on learners’ progress and achievement against predetermined attainment targets
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