An Empirical Research On Effects Of Formative Assessment On Senior High Enylish Learners

Educational assessment plays a key part in educational practices. Over the years,there have evolved two major kinds of educational assessment: summative assessment(SA) and formative assessment (FA). SA is an age-old dominant kind of assessmentaimed at judging learner’s achievement at the end of an instructional unit. FA, quitedifferently, centers on monitoring and regulating learning process through providingeffective feedback.In China, FA is being implemented through policy initiatives. The New EnglishCurriculum Standards (NECS) promulgated in2003explicitly called on theestablishment of a new assessment system of multi-agents and multi-forms, signifyingan extended focus of assessment to be laid not only on learning outcomes but also onlearning process as well. To serve this purpose, FA is initiated for use along with SA toensure a more objective and balanced assessment system beneficial to lifelong, all-around development of students. This inclusion of FA in NECS marked a new era of FAresearches in China, as literature has sprung up in theory building and empirical studies.However, most of the researches are confined to education at tertiary level and theresearches on FA in secondary school are in short supply.Therefore, it is driven by this academic need for more in-depth researches of FA insecondary schools that this thesis is drafted. It contains five chapters.Chapter One gives a brief introduction of the research background, research significance, research objectives, and the structure of the thesis.Chapter Two presents an extensive literature review. Starting from basic conceptsand definitions of FA, it proceeds with a comparison of FA and SA. After that, otherterminologies concerning the research are elaborated. Then, the theoretical base of FA isalso illustrated followed by current researches about FA at home and abroad.Chapter Three centers on methodology and in it encompassed are researchquestions, research subjects and settings, research instruments and research action plan.Briefly, the researcher conducted a5-month-long experiment in two parallel classeswith59Senior2students in Chengdu Foreign Languages School to address two aspectsconcerning the effects of FA. First, what are the effects FA has on students’ languagelearning strategies as mentioned in New English Curriculum Standards (NECS) level8and learning motivation? Second, what are the effects FA has on students’ academicachievement as measured by standardized tests like National Matriculation EnglishTests (NMET)?Chapter Four deals with data results and analyses. The experiment utilizes bothqualitative and quantitative research methods: the former takes the form of interview,self-assessment, peer-assessment, teacher-assessment and portfolio; the latter isoperationalized through questionnaires and standardized tests. While qualitative data arerecorded and reflected on, data collected from quantitative methods are analyzed bySPSS.19.Chapter Five presents major findings of the research and the researchers’reflections. The experiment shows that the effects of FA on LLS are positively seen,especially in terms of monitoring strategies put forward in NECS, while the effects onLLM are weaker and even much weaker on learners’ academic achievement in quasi-NMET tests. The findings imply that researchers and practitioners should be rathercautious about the much claimed positive effects of FA on academic achievement inliterature，knowing that outcomes of implementation of FA is bound not to be astraightforward process with varied outcomes in real educational settings. Practitionersshould bear its limitations in mind while seeking for its best utilization throughcommitting to more field studies to enrich and validate this promising yet uncertaineducational innovation. Further, to bring the potentials of FA into full play in the contextof Senior High teaching, the thesis offers suggestions to practitioners, administrators, and policy-makers as to some possible solutions to the best utilization of FA in thecontext of Senior High. Finally the limitations of the study are also pointed out.Although the research does not show conclusively that FA serves directly to thepromotion of students’ academic gains in standardized tests, it supports the idea that theimplementation of FA has undeniable merits in enriching teaching experience,promoting teachers’ professional development empowering students to be moreautonomous and self-regulated and best of all in creating a supportive atmosphere forthe learning community constructed by both instructors and learners, which mayaltogether lead to promotion in both teaching and learning in the long run.