Study On The Effects Of Formative Assessment On English Reading Motivation And Achievement In Higher Vocational Colleges

Formative assessment is a process assessment targeting at students' learning activities and competence development. Basic Requirements for College English Teaching in Higher Vocational and Technical Colleges issued by Ministry of Education highlights that formative assessment is a kind of process assessment, aiming at improving students' learning and teachers' teaching. Its means and forms can be diverse. Basic Requirements puts forward that each college should actively introduce diversified assessment system based on the characteristics of vocational education. In recent years, more and more researchers abroad and at home have done the related studies and have already got some fruitful results.Reading is one of the basic skills in English learning, while students' in higher vocational colleges have many difficulties in reading comprehension. They don't have strong reading motivation and their achievement in reading comprehension is not satisfactory. Thus, this study mainly focuses on the effects of formative assessment on English reading motivation and achievement in higher vocational colleges. Research questions discuss whether formative assessment is effective in improving students' achievement in reading comprehension and improving students' English reading motivation.This study is conducted in a higher vocational college. One hundred and twenty freshmen from two natural classes take part in the research. The experiment lasts for four months in all, from September, to December, 2015. Results of the pre-test have shown that students in the two classes share the same English reading level.For experiment class, formative assessment is applied in the teaching and learning with integral application of portfolio, class observation and performance assessment based on class presentation. Evaluation form includes teacher assessment, student-involved assessment and collaborative assessment. Each reading task, either portfolio record or class presentation, is assessed in the above assessment form with the assessing results recorded in the corresponding assessment tables.For control class, the teaching and learning of English reading continue totally the same as before, with no changes at all, with the same textbooks and teacher, the same traditional assessment methods, the same teaching and learning pattern in reading classes. Students' progress or problems in reading are not recorded in any forms.Data collected from pre-test, post test, pre-questionnaire, post questionnaire and interview are all analyzed by SPSS 17.0. Data results from questionnaires and the interview have reflected students' changes in English reading motivation. Data results from pre-test and post test have reflected the changes of students' achievement in reading comprehension. Collected data and the related analysis have proved the initial hypotheses. That is, formative assessment can promote students' achievement of English reading comprehension. Both intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivations of the students in experiment class have been improved. In conclusion, experiment results demonstrate clearly that formative assessment is effective in English reading of students in higher vocational colleges.But there are still some limitations in this experiment, for instance, small number of subjects, short period of experiment time and some time-consuming assessment measures, etc. Implications for teaching and learning include that classroom activities of formative assessment are beneficial to students' English reading and assessment form should take many individual factors into account, such as reading motivation. Suggestions include longer period of experiment time, more participants and continuous improvement of the formative assessment.