EFL Student perspectives on formative e-assessment: A case study of Burapha University

Abstract

The study aimed to examine the students’ perspectives toward the merging of formative e-assessment (FEA) in relation to four theoretical framework (i.e., second language acquisition, language pedagogy, language assessment, and technology integration) with face-to-face teaching in various English course between the first semester in 2009 and the first semester in 2011. Participant were 672 undergraduates who enrolled in English III, English Structure and English for Sciences and Technology, and 23 postgraduates who enrolled in Reading and Research Methodology on English taught by the research at the Department of Western Languages, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Burapha University. The study was quantitative research, using a longitudinal survey research design. All numerical date were collected through a questionnaire which was a four-point Likert rating scale. The questionnaire was piloted and administered to the participants by the researcher at the end of their course. The applications of descriptive statistics (i.e., percentage, mean, standard deviation) were employed for data analysis. The results revealed that the EFL students rated their perspectives on formative e-assessment in accordance with second language acquisition theory, language pedagogy theory, language assessment theory, and technology integration highly positive. Regarding the undergraduate participants in English III group, 85% responded optimistically to the merging of FEA in their required foundation EFL course. Meanwhile, 90% of the participants in the English Structure group replied in the questionnaire that FEA helped improve their language skills. In the last undergraduate group, English for Sciences and Technology, over 86% were satisfied with using FEA in their ESP course. In addition, 90% of the postgraduate participants in the Reading group expressed their preference to the content of FEA that it was related to their course syllabus, and over 85% stated that FEA helped improve their reading skill. More than 88% of the postgraduates in the Research Methodology on English group verified that FEA encouraged them to construct their knowledge by themselves as FEA was linked to tremendous amount of online information