The Effects Of Classroom Assessment On Writing Self-Efficacy Of English Majors

Self-efficacy, a key construct in social cognitive theory, refers to beliefs about one's capabilities to learn or perform behaviors at designated levels. Much research shows that students'self-efficacy affects their choice of tasks, effort, persistence, and achievement; students with high self-efficacy always work harder, persist longer when encountering difficulties, and achieve at a higher level than those who doubt their learning abilities; meanwhile, self-efficacy is a malleable construct that could be enhanced through providing students with motivational assistance and guidance.Classroom assessment is an ongoing process of gathering useful information to be used as feedback to monitor and modify teaching and learning. Many studies indicate that classroom assessment can lead to significant achievement gains, especially for low-achievers; with psychological and affective factors taken into account, classroom assessment is also proved to exert positive influence on students'affect.Many Chinese students suffer from low self-efficacy in writing, which affect their attainment negatively. The classroom assessment practice in this study is designed to improve students'writing self-efficacy. By conducting multidimensional assessment approaches, this study attempted to investigate if classroom assessment is helpful and to what extent it can help to enhance their sense of writing self-efficacy.This thesis is based on a one-semester experimental research which was conducted in Xiangsi Lake College of Guangxi University for Nationalities. The participants, 60 junior English majors, were divided into experimental group (EG) and control group (CG). Classroom assessment was integrated into the instruction of EG, while traditional instruction and assessment were adopted in CG. The research aimed to address the following questions: 1) Does classroom assessment affect the writing self-efficacy of English majors? 2) Does classroom assessment more affect high achievers or low achievers in writing self-efficacy? 3) How does classroom assessment affect writing self-efficacy?The data were collected through test, questionnaires, interviews, portfolios. Independent Sample T-test was applied to find out the effects of classroom assessment on writing self-efficacy between the two groups and between the high achievers and low achievers in experimental group respectively. The analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data led to the following findings: 1) Students engaged in continuous classroom assessment evidenced significant increases in writing self-efficacy. 2) Low achievers benefited more from classroom assessment in writing self-efficacy than high achievers did. 3) Classroom assessment affected students'writing self-efficacy through such components as classroom environment, self-assessment and self- reflection, peer assessment and peer comparison, portfolio assessment and goal setting.Results of this study support both self-efficacy theory and the link between engagement in continuous classroom assessment and enhanced efficacy. Therefore, it's vital for teachers to be cognizant of students'self-efficacy level and integrate classroom assessment components beneficial for their improvement of self-efficacy into the English writing teaching so that students can make greater progress.Finally, the potential problems for implementation of classroom assessment, the limitations and suggestions were put forward for future research.