چکیده:
This paper reports on a study that investigated the effect of self-assessment on a group of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students’ goal orientation. To this end, 57 EFL students participated in a seven-week course. The participants were divided into an experimental and a control group. At the beginning and at end of the semester, both groups completed a goal-orientation questionnaire. However, the participants in the experimental group completed a bi-weekly self-assessment questionnaire throughout the semester as well. The data were analyzed using a Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA). The findings revealed that the students’ learning goal orientation improved significantly in the experimental group. This suggests that practicing self-assessment on a formative basis boosts EFL students’ leaning goal orientation.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Hence, a clearer understanding of the role of self-assessment in improving EFL learners’ goal orientation would help language teachers in raising students’ awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses.
Self-assessment has often been reported as an effective tool because it provides an opportunity for learners to engage in the learning process by evaluating their own strengths and weaknesses, reflection on their progress, and setting goals for themselves as learners (Paris & Ayres, 1994).
Through self-assessment, students can become aware of goals and expectations, monitor their learning process, and evaluate their own state of understanding against goals and standards defined by the curriculum (Butler & Lee, 2010).
In addition, self-assessment may not be widely practiced in education simply because that many teachers do not trust the pedagogical values and the reliability of learners’ self- and peer-assessment (Birjandi & Siyyari, 2010) Enhanced awareness of the learning process and improved goal orientation on the part of learners are the benefits of self-assessment over teacher-centered assessment in language learning contexts (Blanche & Merino, 1989).
Despite the fact that the role of self-assessment in increasing goal orientation has been hypothesized (Butler & Lee, 2010; Oscarson, 1989), there is a paucity of studies in supporting this claim.
The following question, hence, guides the present study: Does EFL learners’ goal orientation level increase significantly at the end of the treatment period through applying self-assessment skills?
Discussion The present study investigated the effect of using self-assessment on improving EFL learners’ goal orientation level.