| In recent years, formative assessment is used in many EFL writing classrooms to assist students'three writing processes: planning, drafting and reviewing (Flower & Hayes, 1981), so that students'written product can be improved. This thesis, by investigating a web-based EFL writing project that implements formative assessment, explores the effect of formative assessment on participants'writing process and written products. The research design is based on Sadler's (1989) formative assessment theory, Flower & Hayes'(1981) model of writing process, and Faigley & Witte's (1981) taxonomy of changes in written product. This thesis intends to contribute to the understanding of formative assessment in Chinese EFL context and provide inspiration for designing and implementing formative assessment in a similar context.This thesis employs a qualitative research method. Its data include e-mails between the project participants and the researcher, as well as those between participants and the project instructor, submitted written assignments from participants, forum postings and oral interviews with two writing pairs. The major findings from the data analysis are summarized as follows:1. The research confirms the existence of the three types of formative feedback incorporated in formative assessment which is proposed by Ramaprasad (1983): surface-level feedback, clarification-level feedback and content-level feedback, with clarification-level feedback being the least used and content-level feedback the most. All the feedback is focused and individualized; furthermore, most feedback is produced during participants'planning and drafting process.2. Formative assessment in this project provides the project participants with continuous, individualized support during the writing process in cognitive, affective and social aspects. It fosters participants'reactive autonomy by setting concrete targets to guide their writing behaviors.3. The three types of formative feedback in formative assessment improve...
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