A Study On The Effectiveness Of Portfolio-based Assessment In Senior Middle School Students’ Learner Autonomy Development

This thesis aims to examine the effectiveness of portfolio-based autonomy development. Learner autonomy provides a solution to remedying the traditional problems resulting from teacher-centeredness. However, the related research and surveys show that there is still much room for raising the level of LA for domestic middle school students. Until now in China, learning strategy training and self-access are main methods adopted by most researchers to foster student’learner autonomy, but both of them have their own shortcomings. Then more and more attention has been paid to the portfolio-based autonomy development at home and abroad, but they mainly employ qualitative methodology.This study takes a mixed-method research approach, in the form of questionnaires, experimental and case study to gain both qualitative and quantitative data and to test whether there is a correlation between portfolio-based assessment and LA. The research was conducted in two classes of a senior middle school in Shenzhen. The follow-up study was conducted among40EG students with40CG students in comparison in a term since Feb.2013. The researcher took charge of designing, implementation and evaluation. The questionnaire was designed including six variables of LA to testify the effectiveness of portfolio implementation, and four sample students were chosen from the EG students to track their learning process and their attitude to the new project by journals, interviews and class observations. Thus two research questions of the study are confirmed as follows:Q1:Is portfolio-based assessment effective in promoting learner autonomy?Q2:What progress do EG students make in the portfolio development?The quantitative data is analyzed by the statistic soft SPSS, which shows that there is significant difference in some aspects of LA between EG and CG students. EG students outperformed CG students in the metacognition and willingness to English learning. In addition, EG students do better in the post-test results and class performance. Although there is no substantial difference revealed in the interactive behaviors, EG students surpass to some extent. The common problem faced by the students is the lack of learning methods and learning materials, which tell us that the appropriate measures should be taken to solve the problem reflected in the study, the teacher must emphasize the guidance of learning methods, proper learning materials recommendation and the ability of communication in real context.The case studies have a further illustration to prove the positive effect resulted in the portfolio-based autonomy development. But more time and efforts are needed to invest in the process of portfolio implementation, which increased the burden on teachers and students to a certain extent. A more mature mechanism is badly needed to explore to improve the efficiency of portfolio development. If there is an integration of the top-down approach with the bottom-up approach, the study will be yield better development. Therefore in the end, an assumption is put forward, portfolio implementation will be more convenient and effective if the researcher adds an E before it and the further studies are recommended in promoting LA considering the individual and social factors.