A Study Of The Change Of Pre-service English Teachers’ Assessment Literacy In The Course Of Language Testing And Assessment

The transformation of the educational assessment paradigm from "assessment of learning" to assessment for learning",is of great theoretical and practical significance to promote the integration of teaching,learning and assessment,which will deepen the curriculum reform,improve the quality of education and teaching,and promote teachers’professional development.As teachers’ assessment determines the quality of education to a certain extent,teachers’ assessment literacy is becoming increasingly important.However,the status quo of English teachers’ assessment literacy in China is not optimistic.And most of the existing research on assessment literacy is mainly theoretical discussion or static investigation using the questionnaire survey.There is a significant lack of research on the case-based follow-up observation on the development of teachers’ assessment literacy,especially the pre-service teachers.By taking a whole class of the pre-service English teachers in a comprehensive university graduate program as the participants,six of them as in-depth interviewees,this study adopted both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore their assessment literacy.Questionnaires,semi-structured interviews,and classroom observation have been used as data-collection methods.This study seeks to examine whether the pre-service English teachers’ assessment literacy had changed through a core graduate course,Language Testing and Assessment,and investigate the mediating factors.There are two research questions in this study:The first is what are the changes in pre-service English teachers’assessment literacy after taking this Language Testing and Assessment course?The second is what factors affect pre-service English teachers’ assessment literacy?This intends to deepen the understanding of the complex and dynamic process of the development of the pre-service English teachers’ assessment literacy,shedding some light on the curriculum construction of teacher education programs.The results of this study show that there was no significant change in the assessment literacy of the pre-service English teachers before and after this course.First of all,in terms of assessment knowledge,the participants had mastered more declarative concepts related to assessment in this course,but were still vague about some more theoretical and esoteric assessment concepts and procedural knowledge.Second,in assessment skill perspective,the single most significant change lies in that the participants had mastered some skills to develop assessment methods with higher validity.The overall assessment skills of pre-service English teachers were weak and their sense of self-efficacy were low.Finally,in terms of assessment attitude,the pre-service English teachers had changed their attitude towards assessment.They no longer viewed assessment as an independent concept and link,and gradually came to understand that assessment could promote learning and teaching,and actively reflected on teachers’ identity as assessors.The interview results show that the factors affecting the above changes are mainly from both external and internal aspects.The external factors include the instructor’s teaching methods,course content,peer influence,social accountability,and the internal factors include the participants’ learning experiences,personal conceptions of teaching,and specific assessment practice.The study shows that the assessment literacy of pre-service English teachers still needs to be improved.Based on the above findings,the researcher,from the perspective of seven internal and external factors,puts forward corresponding suggestions to improve pre-service English teachers’ assessment literacy and the effectiveness of assessment literacy education courses.