Pre-Service And In-Service English Teachers' Perceptions Of Testing And Assessment In Efl Classes

Abstract

Today, with the change in approaches and methods in language teaching, assessing language learners have undergone the similar process from behaviorist to communicative. Assessment in language classrooms is the best way to get knowledge about methods of teaching and the situation about students. The primary aim of the current research is to investigate the differences between the perceptions of pre-service and in-service English teachers of classroom based language assessment. Besides, the differences between groups of participants according to their backgrounds have been studied. A questionnaire consisted of 42 items was used in this study following a quantitative research design. 99 pre-service teachers from Hacettepe University and 40 in-service teachers in Ankara answered the questionnaire in 2017-2018 academic year. “Descriptive statistics” were used in order to see the difference between perceptions of teachers and teacher candidates and “correlation analyses” were conducted in order to see the relation between stages of classroom based assessment. Participants’ perceptions according to their background were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of the study reveal that there is a significant difference between pre-service and in-service teachers’ perceptions of some stages of classroom based assessment. The groups have been found to have positive perceptions of classroom based assessment. While no difference has been found according to teacher candidates’ gender and GPA, teaching experience of teachers has been discovered to create a significant difference.