A Comparative Study On The Assessment Literacy Of Pre-service And In-service English Teachers

The English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2017)clearly points out that: “teaching and assessment are important components of implementing English curriculum.Teaching is the key link to cultivate students’ practical ability of language application,and assessment is an important means to monitor the teaching process and teaching effect in time.Teachers should deal with the relationship between teaching and assessment correctly”.Assessment literacy has become a necessary quality,which plays a positive leading role in teachers’ professional development.However,most of the previous studies focused on the assessment literacy of all teachers and ignored the characteristics of subjects,the research participants were mainly in-teachers.At the same time,normal school students,as the future main force of teachers,whose assessment literacy has not received much attention.Therefore,this paper explores and compares the status quo of assessment literacy of pre-service and in-service English teachers,clarifies the differences in assessment literacy of the two types of English teachers,so as to provide enlightenment for English teachers’ assessment practice.In this study,42 postgraduate students majoring in English Education from a university in Inner Mongolia and 37 English teachers from a middle school are selected as the research participants.Through the form of questionnaire and interview,their assessment literacy is investigated.This study aims to answer the following research questions:1.What are the differences between pre-service and in-service English teachers in the levels of assessment literacy? 2.What are the differences between the pre-service and in-service English teachers in the factors that cause the different assessment literacy? 3.In what ways could the assessment literacy of pre-service and in-service English teachers be improved? Software SPSS23.0 is used to analyze the quantitative data of the questionnaire,including descriptive statistics,independent samples t-test and pearson correlation,and the content of interview is used as a qualitative supplement to the research results.The results show that: 1.The assessment literacy of in-service English teachers is obviously higher than that of pre-service English teachers,and the performance of in-service English teachers is also better than that of pre-service English teachers in four dimensions(assessment consciousness,assessment attitude,assessment knowledge and assessment skills).Especially,there are significant differences in the scores of the two types of English teachers in the assessment knowledge and skills.2.In terms of influencing factors,the effects of each factor on the assessment literacy of the two kinds of English teachers are different.Specifically,the degree of influence on assessment literacy of pre-service English teachers,from high to low,is teaching practice,third-party assessments,social atmosphere,school culture and parents’ expectations.The degree of correlation between assessment literacy of in-service English teachers and factors,from large to small,is school culture,teaching practice,third-party assessments,parents’ expectations and social atmosphere.Finally,for pre-service English teachers,the learning experience before teaching has a greater impact on their assessment literacy,while for the in-service English teachers,the learning experience after teaching influence them more.3.The pre-service and in-service English teachers are inclined to improve assessment literacy through their own efforts,such as consulting senior teachers’ experience,reading books about assessment,etc.In addition,pre-service English teachers are looking forward to have more opportunities to communicate with students,while in-service English teachers more hope get the external help in the field of assessment to guide them.Based on the research results,this study also puts forward corresponding suggestions to improve the assessment literacy of pre-service and in-service English teachers.Additionally,this study selects the perspective of pre-service and in-service English teachers,which to some extent enriches the study of English teachers’ assessment literacy.It also provides reference for English teaching,improves the quality of English teaching,and promotes the professional development of English teachers.