Using summative and formative assessments to evaluate EFL teachers’ teaching performance

Using classroom observations (formative) and student course experience survey results (summative) to evaluate English lecturers’ teaching performances is not new in practice, but surprisingly only a few studies have investigated this issue in a higher education context. This study was conducted in an English department of a large university in Vietnam. The data include: (1) semi-structured interviews with all the full-time lecturers, (2) two department heads and (3) course experience surveys from English as a foreign language (EFL) students (N?=?2886). Three lessons can be learned: (1) formative assessments do not seem to have an effect on promoting better teaching practices when their feedback is not helpful in improving high-stakes summative assessment results, (2) without sharing a common definition of good teaching practices among assessors, summative assessments appear to make the feedback from formative assessments less meaningful and applicable, and (3) as a result, the combination of formative and summative assessments tends to make EFL lecturers’ self-assessment practices less effective.     

高考英语全国卷与各省市自主命题卷阅读理解试题内容效度分析

本文根据效度研究的有关理论,结合《全日制高级中学英语教学大纲(试验修订版)》、《普通高中英语课程标准(实验)》和2004—2006年的高考英语考试大纲,对这三年的高考英语阅读理解试题进行内容效度分析,结果表明:阅读理解的篇章体裁和题材比较多样化,体裁以说明文为主,部分试卷出现了应用文和描写文;题材以社会与文化为主,但其比重有下降趋势,科普类文章随后,比重略有增加;阅读量和生词量与大纲要求基本相符;考查技能中简单推断占的比例最大。分析中也发现部分选材和题项设计存在问题,对此,本文对阅读理解试题的命制和高中英语教学提出了相关建议。     

谈信度、效度与学业测试

信度与效度是学业测试的两个质量特征,如何处理两者之间的关系也是测试的根本问题。在介绍信度和效度的定义、关系的基础上,对学业测试中的信度与效度进行分析,并且阐述如何平衡两者之间的关系。最终证明学业测试是一种有效的测量手段,并且必将提高教学质量。     

Mean Effects of Test Accommodations for ELLs and Non‐ELLs: A Meta‐Analysis of Experimental Studies

The objective was to examine the impact of different types of accommodations on performance in content tests such as mathematics. The meta‐analysis included 14 U.S. studies that randomly assigned school‐aged English language learners (ELLs) to test accommodation versus control conditions or used repeated measures in counter‐balanced order. Individual effect sizes (Glass's d) were calculated for 50 groups of ELLs and 32 groups of non‐ELLs. Individual effect sizes for English language and native language accommodations were classified into groups according to type of accommodation and timing conditions. Means and standard errors were calculated for each category. The findings suggest that accommodations that require extra printed materials need generous time limits for both the accommodated and unaccommodated groups to ensure that they are effective, equivalent in scale to the original test, and therefore more valid owing to reduced construct‐irrelevant variance. Computer‐administered glossaries were effective even when time limits were restricted. Although the Plain English accommodation had very small average effect sizes, inspection of individual effect sizes suggests that it may be much more effective for ELLs at intermediate levels of English language proficiency. For Spanish‐speaking students with low proficiency in English, the Spanish test version had the highest individual effect size (+1.45).     

‘Finally studying for myself’ – examining student agency in summative and formative self-assessment models

Abstract

Promoting student agency has been seen as the primary function for new generation assessment environments. In this paper, we introduce two models of self-assessment as a way to foster students’ sense of agency. A socio-cultural framework was utilised to understand the interaction between student agency and self-assessment. Through a comparative design, we investigated whether formative self-assessment and summative self-assessment, based on self-grading, would offer students different affordances for agency. The results show that while both models offered affordances for agentic learning, future-driven agency was only presented by the students studying according to the summative model. Our results shed light on the interplay of student agency and self-assessment in higher education.     

口试评分规范化与信度研究

口语考试的效度较高,信度却比较低。但没有信度,效度也不可能真正得到保证。因此,如何提高口试的信度,是很多测试研究者普遍关注的问题。本文通过描述清华大学英语水平考试中口试部分的评分规范化与评分员培训,对如何规范评分以提高口试信度这一问题进行讨论。     

英语专业翻译教学中的形成性评价探究

作为教学过程中极其重要的一环,教学评价对教学效果的影响举足轻重。对英语专业的翻译教学进行动态的、及时的形成性评价,将极大地改善翻译教学的现状。通过对终结性评价和形成性评价及其理论基础的分析可见,应当运用多种方式对翻译教学进行形成性评价并使其贯穿翻译教学的始终,才能让学生真正做到学有所得。     

Standards-based performance assessment for the evaluation of student teachers: a consequential validity study

The instrument Samples of Teaching Performance (STP) was developed to assess student teachers' capacity to plan, deliver and evaluate a unit of instruction. The current study reports consequential validity data collected from supervisors (n?=?20) and student teachers (n?=?62) from three elementary and five secondary teacher preparation programs in Chile that participated in the field-testing of the STP. Student teachers described how this assessment had honed their sense of professionalism and promoted learning of the skills assessed. Supervisors reported enlarging the topics discussed with student teachers and making some changes to the supervisory process. These findings are complemented by an analysis of the STP scores obtained by 24 student teachers, which showed better development of instructional skills when compared to pedagogical reasoning and reflection. These results raise questions about the structure of student teaching to support the implementation of standards-based assessments that entail tasks at different levels of cognitive complexity.     

形成性评价与总结性评价理论探究

自从形成性评价和总结性评价理论提出以来,人们对它们的涵义及相互关系仍有不同诠释。实际上形成性评价和总结性评价是一个连续体的两个方面：评价起于总结性,而形成性评价实际上是总结性评价加反馈和改进的过程。     

英语口语教学评价机制探析

阐述英语口语教学评价的必要性和重要性,分析目前英语口语教学的现状,提出形成性评价与终结性评价相结合的英语口语综合评价体系,该评价体系对英语口语教学起关键性作用。