The Relationship Between Iranian EFL Teachers’ Assessment Literacy and Their Attitudes Toward Dynamic Assessment
محورهای موضوعی : Journal of Studies in Learning and Teaching English
Mohsen Parsaee
1
(Department of Foreign Languages Islamic Azad University, Shiraz Branch, Shiraz, Iran)
Leila Akbarpour
2
(Department of English Language, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran)
کلید واژه:
چکیده مقاله :
Even though teachers’ Assessment Literacy (AL) is of high importance, it has been a Cinderella in Iran as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Moreover, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, the relationship between AL and attitude toward Dynamic Assessment (DA) has not been studied so far. To this end, 104 EFL teachers were selected from 12 English language institutes across Shiraz. The Assessment Literacy Questionnaire (Campbell & Mertler, 2003) including 35 items was used to find the level of assessment knowledge of the participants. Moreover, the Attitudes towards Dynamic Assessment Questionnaire (Gholamalian et al., 2015) was used to measure the participants’ attitudes toward DA. The results of Multiple Regression Analysis revealed a strong and significant relationship between the participants’ scores on the AL and attitudes toward DA. Moreover, there were significant and positive relationships between EFL teachers’ attitudes toward DA and the five subcomponents of AL. Amongst the five subcomponents of AL, Choice of Methods had the highest correlation with EFL teachers’ attitudes towards DA. Accounting for about 45% of the variance in the attitudes toward DA scores, Choice of Methods had the highest Beta value, suggesting a stronger contribution to the dependent variable, i.e., attitudes toward DA. The results may have implications for practitioners in the field of education, in general, and teaching EFL, in particular.
Even though teachers’ Assessment Literacy (AL) is of high importance, it has been a Cinderella in Iran as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Moreover, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, the relationship between AL and attitude toward Dynamic Assessment (DA) has not been studied so far. To this end, 104 EFL teachers were selected from 12 English language institutes across Shiraz. The Assessment Literacy Questionnaire (Campbell & Mertler, 2003) including 35 items was used to find the level of assessment knowledge of the participants. Moreover, the Attitudes towards Dynamic Assessment Questionnaire (Gholamalian et al., 2015) was used to measure the participants’ attitudes toward DA. The results of Multiple Regression Analysis revealed a strong and significant relationship between the participants’ scores on the AL and attitudes toward DA. Moreover, there were significant and positive relationships between EFL teachers’ attitudes toward DA and the five subcomponents of AL. Amongst the five subcomponents of AL, Choice of Methods had the highest correlation with EFL teachers’ attitudes towards DA. Accounting for about 45% of the variance in the attitudes toward DA scores, Choice of Methods had the highest Beta value, suggesting a stronger contribution to the dependent variable, i.e., attitudes toward DA. The results may have implications for practitioners in the field of education, in general, and teaching EFL, in particular.
