EFL TEACHERS' AWARENESS AND PRACTICE OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF GAMO AND GOFA ZONES IN FOCUS

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate secondary school EFL teachers’ awareness and practice of formative assessment in Gamo and Gofa zones, SNNPR, Ethiopia. The study employed survey design with concurrent- mixed methods approach to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from 204 secondary school EFL teachers using questionnaire and interview, document analysis and observation. Based on the data, concurrent-convergent analysis was method made thematically. The data collected through questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively and interpreted using mean and standard deviation to examine the participants’ awareness level of formative assessment. In connection, interview data analysis was made to validate the results of quantitative data analysis. Moreover, one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to analyze quantitative data to investigate: 1/ whether teaching experience and 2/ educational qualification significantly determine the participants’ awareness level of formative assessment. Furthermore, document and observation data analysis was made to investigate the participants’ practice of assessment. Accordingly, the result of data analysis revealed that the participants’ awareness of formative assessment was low. The result also indicated that teaching experience and educational qualification didn’t significantly determine the teachers’ awareness of formative assessment. Moreover, the result revealed that the participants didn’t plan and put formative assessment in to practice in English language c instruction. The results imply the problems identified might be emanated from inadequacy of Secondary school EFL teacher education curriculum to accommodate relevant formative assessment courses. Hence these findings are useful to the educational authorities of Ministry of education (MoE) to evaluate secondary school EFL curriculum of teacher education in use, revise and incorporate relevant formative assessment courses if the curriculum lack adequacy in incorporating formative assessment courses that can effectively orient EFL teachers. Besides, other stakeholders including, scholars in universities and teacher education colleges can use the findings as basements to conduct empirical researches and to make interventions to provide on job short term training to solve the current problems related to secondary school EFL teachers’ awareness and practice of formative assessment in different contexts