檔案袋評價對中國大學(xué)生英語寫作能力的個案研究

Abstract:This study meant to investigate the actual effect of portfolio assessment in college English writing in three concrete aspect—accuracy， complexity and coherence. The current article reported a comparative study designed to investigate differences between the experimental group who used portfolio assessment and the control group after the one term-last experiment.

摘 要：本研究旨在從準(zhǔn)確性、復(fù)雜性和連貫性三個方面探索檔案袋評價對大學(xué)生英語寫作能力的影響。本文報告了一學(xué)期之后使用檔案袋評價的實驗組與對照組的對比研究結(jié)果。

Key words: portfolio assessment; formative assessment; English writing ability

關(guān)鍵詞：檔案袋評價、過程性評價、英語寫作能力

[中圖分類號]：G633.41 [文獻(xiàn)標(biāo)識碼]：A

[文章編號]：1002-2139(2012)-03-0222-01

1. Introduction

As one of the more prominent assessment instruments for learning， portfolio represents a significant departure from traditional tests of learning and can be utilized as tool for competence development. The presents study aimed to find a more effective method of evaluating freshmen’s English writing. It was designed to employ experimental method to establish students’ portfolios and to find out whether the portfolio assessment can improve their writing abilities.

2. Literature review

In the last decade of the 20th century， interest in and commiment to portfolios for assessing college writing swelled enormously in America and Europe. A number of studies focused on reliability and validity of portfolio based writing assessment.. Portfolio assessment was introduced to China in late 1990s， and has been used as an alternate means of assessment to more traditional tests methods. Many primary and secondary schools have been employing this approach in various subjects， such as English， arts， chemistry， and mathematics.

3.Methodology

3.1 Research question

The research question of the present study was: Can portfolio assessment better improve students’ English writing ability of accuracy， complexity and coherence at the end of one term-last experiment?

3.2 Setting and sampling

The present project was designed according to the general principles recommended by Hamp-Lyons and Cordon (2000) and the framework posed by Delett，et al. (2001).

The participants were selected by purposeful sampling， and this study focuses on two classes of one teacher and 61 freshmen of a technological academy in Shandong province. All of the participants have never used portfolio in their previous study. The two classes received the same instruction but different assessment approaches. The results of pre-test showed that there were no significant differences between two groups.

3.3 Instrument design

In order to analysis the three varible， this study employed “Coh-Metrix” developed by Graesser et al.(2004)， which was available freely on the internet. In the current study， the compositions written by the two groups in pre- and post-project tests were put into computer with the original features with all the mistakes. Then these texts were read into Coh-Metrics one by one and the values of coherence and numbers of words and syllables have been calculated and stored in Excel for the purpose of further analysis.

4.Results and analysis

The following was the results of essay tests at the end of the project.

As for the space limitation， only the paried samples test of experimental group was displayed. In the above table the mean for the experimental group in the posttest were .507， 12.66， 1.06 and .734 with the deviation .011， .038， .127 and .128. The observed t-value were 8.2， 7.6， 7.4， and 12.4 which were greater than the critical value. As the same time， p=.000， which was much less than .05. The table showed the means between pretest and posttest are different， and the result of posttest was higher than that in the pretest. The results indicated that the experimental class has improved writing skills greatly. From the results analysis of the data， it testified that both summative assessment and formative assessment can help enhance students’writing ability， but formative assessment can more faciliate the improvement of college freshemen’s writing ability of accuarcy， complexity and coherence than summative assessment.

5.Conclusion

This study investigated the EFL learners’ experiences and perceptions of participating in the writing portfolio assessment project. Although the data from this study give some implication on the improvement of students’ writing ability by using portfolio assessment， limitations still exist. Hoping it is helpful to futher research.

References：

[1]、Delett， J.S.， Barnhardt， S. Kevorkian， J. A. (2001). A framework for portfolio assessment in the foreign language classroom. Foreign language annals， 34(6)， 559-568.

[2]、Graesser， A.， McNamara， D.， Louwerse， M. Cai， Z. (2004). Coh-Metrix: Analysis of text on cohesion and language. Behavior research methods， instruments， and computers， 36， 193-202.

[3]、Hamp-Lyons， L. Condon， W. (2000). Assessing the portfolio: Principles for practice， theory， and research. New Jersey: Hampton Press.