Potentials and Challenges of E-assessment in Postgraduate TEFL Programs: Teachers' Insights about Assessment before and during the Pandemic

Subject Areas : Research in English Language Pedagogy

Fatemeh Jamshidi Gohari ¹ , Shima Ghahari ^{2 *} , Gholamreza Rouhani ³ , Faezeh Jamshidi Gohari ⁴

1 - Department of Foreign Languages, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran
2 - Department of Foreign Languages, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran
3 - Department of Foreign Languages, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran
4 - Department of Electronic Education, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Received: 2024-10-07 Accepted : 2025-02-07 Published : 2025-05-31

Keywords: Electronic Assessment (E-Assessment), Formative Assessment, Postgraduate Programs, Summative Assessment, Teachers' Perspectives, Teaching English as Foreign Language (TEFL),

Abstract :

 Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, educational centres worldwide transitioned their assessment modes from face-to-face to electronic assessments (i.e., e-assessments). E-assessment offers numerous benefits, including higher accessibility, asynchronous discussions, personalised feedback, randomisation of questions, and time-saving automatic scoring. Yet, e-assessment is not without its certain limitations. This study explored two main objectives: the prevailing assessment methods of postgraduate TEFL programs before and during the pandemic period and the teachers' perceptions of the benefits and challenges of e-assessment. Following the snowball sampling technique, 38 TEFL teachers from different universities in Iran participated in the study by responding to an open-ended questionnaire. The results were as follows: (a) A combination of summative and formative assessments was used before and during the pandemic; (b) Although the use of formative assessment became limited during the pandemic, it was still prevalent; (c) While presentations were the most popular formative assessment before the pandemic, it was replaced with projects afterwards; (d) Observation was the least applicable method in e-assessment; (e) Multiple-choice, short-answer, and open-ended questions were respectively the favoured test methods in e-assessment. The major benefits of e-assessments were reducing teachers' workload and increasing familiarity with new technologies, whereas poor internet connections and a lack of monitoring of students’ performance during exams were reported as the main challenges. Based on the findings, teachers are recommended to apply more than one assessment method, match the type of assessment with the students' needs and contextual exigencies, and discuss their successful experiences and practices with their peers.

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