An Empirical Study Of The Impact Of Formative Assessment On College Students’ English Learning Efficacy

It is well acknowledged that assessment can be accounted for an integral part of English language learning, especially in teaching. Compared with the traditional summative assessment, formative assessment is to evaluate the learning process of the students, which would provide instant feedback for the teacher, who would adjust their teaching methods to the students’ practical needs. The summative assessment is a traditional way of testing students’ learning results during one unit, one semester or one module and its effect has some limitations, which neglects the role of students as the major parts of learning, and ignores the feedback provided by the students. Formative assessment, however, focuses on the evaluation of students’ whole learning process.Under the guidance of formative assessment theory, this thesis aims to study the impact of formative assessment on college students’ English learning efficacy. At the beginning of the thesis, three hypotheses are put forward. First, whether formative assessment can affect college students’ learning motivation? Second, whether it can influence their learning strategy development? Third, whether formative assessment can facilitate the change of their learning attitude? Based on the formative assessment theory, through the shift of teacher’s roles and the change of teacher’s teaching methods, contents and strategies, this thesis wants to find whether these changes have positive effect on students’ learning efficacy. This study includes experiment of182college freshmen in two classes in ECUST, of which94students are in experimental class and88students in regular class. Formative assessment is applied in the experimental class, questionnaires and interviews are distributed to them. And this research adopts the qualitative and quantitative methods by applying formative tests and building portfolios respectively. The teacher assessment and peer assessment methods are also involved in this study. Then the statistics of formative tests and questionnaires have been analyzed by SPSS20.0in great detail.On the basis of data analysis of six formative tests and regular performances reflected in the portfolios, this thesis reaches the conclusion that formative assessment has a positive impact on college students’ English learning efficacy, which in fact has stimulated students’ learning motivation and changed their learning attitude, also their learning strategies have been developed and learning achievements have been improved. In detailed analysis of the interviews and questionnaires, students’ vocabulary has been enlarged and reading ability has been enhanced. Their learning autonomy and perception of learning have also been improved in an overall perspective. In terms of gender difference, the results show that the impact of formative assessment has distinct effects on students of different genders. That is, from the comparative scores and individual performances in and out of class, male students get quicker improvement in test scores and have more proactive performances than female students, which is reflected in their portfolio records and formative scores. However, this does not mean that male students get better grades than female students. It is our understanding that female students have higher self-consciousness and patience in English learning than male students. Therefore, the conclusion can be made that formative assessment has positive impact on students’ learning performance.