Masoomeh Estaji
Abstract
Classroom assessment, as the complementary part of the language learning process, is a powerful decision-making instrument. Nonetheless, more research is required regarding the ways teachers cope with these requirements, and how they affect their pedagogical practices. This study is an attempt to examine ...
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Classroom assessment, as the complementary part of the language learning process, is a powerful decision-making instrument. Nonetheless, more research is required regarding the ways teachers cope with these requirements, and how they affect their pedagogical practices. This study is an attempt to examine EFL teachers’ perceptions of assessment literacy and the criteria they consider to assess their students. Moreover, it examines whether graduate and undergraduate teachers differ in terms of their assessment literacy. To this end, by using a survey and Ex-Post Facto research design and through a two-part questionnaire on assessment literacy (adapted from Plake, 1993; Plake, Impara, & Fager, 1993), a comparison was made between undergraduate (N=22) and graduate teachers (N=10) of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), English Literature, Translation studies, and Linguistics selected through purposive sampling on their perceptions of assessment literacy. The research results revealed a statistically significant difference between undergraduate and graduate teachers’ perceptions of assessment literacy. Results also showed that graduate teachers had higher perceptions of assessment literacy than their undergraduate counterparts, representing the effect of their level of education and educational background. Thus, this study highlights the significance of giving sufficient and proper training to all soon-to-be language teachers on language assessment, argues for the need, suggests ways by which teachers can become more literate in the domain of language assessment, and presents ways teacher educators and language testing experts can assist in this path.
Masoomeh Estaji; Negar Babanezhad Kafshgar
Abstract
The current study was aimed at exploring Differential Item Functioning (DIF) items in Iranian TEFL MA Entrance Exam employing two beneficial and valuable statistical methods: Logistic Regression (LR) and Mantel-Haenszel (MH). Besides, the founded DIF items were gone through a content analysis in order ...
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The current study was aimed at exploring Differential Item Functioning (DIF) items in Iranian TEFL MA Entrance Exam employing two beneficial and valuable statistical methods: Logistic Regression (LR) and Mantel-Haenszel (MH). Besides, the founded DIF items were gone through a content analysis in order to explore the potential linguistic resources of such biases. To this end, the answer sheets of 2217 female and 735 male examinees in 2015 were analyzed to find items containing DIF. The findings of LR technique determined eight items as DIF containing items. Half of the items were advantageous to the men and the other half of the items favoured women. MH procedure explored eleven items as DIF flagging items. Out of these items, six items favoured male test takers and five items showed tendency toward female test takers. No particular linguistic source for such deviated behaviour of items was proposed through the content analysis of the DIF items.