The effect of short embedded formative assessments and feedback on student reading comprehension achievement of grade four students -

Abstract

The current study investigated the effect of short embedded formative assessment and feedback on the achievement of English reading comprehension of grade four learners who take English as a first foreign language. Another purpose of the study was to inspect the difference in the impact of the formative assessment on high and low-achieving students. Accordingly, a quasi-experimental design was implemented for the duration of 8 weeks to enable the determination of whether each of the two independent variables (achievement level and assessment strategy) has an effect on the dependent variable (student reading achievement). The experiment was done on two sections (N = 50) of grade 4 students of a private school located in Greater Beirut Area. TORC-4 (Test of Reading Comprehension 4th edition: a standardized test) was administered as a pre and a posttest for the formative and conventional assessment groups. Descriptive statistics and ANCOVA was calculated for the pre and post-tests of the formative and conventional assessment groups in the process of data analysis for the first research question. No significant differences were found between the formative and conventional assessment groups except in one subtest. As for the second research question, the upper third and the lower third of both groups (formative and conventional) were categorized as upper and lower thirds based on the scores of TORC-4 in the pretest. Descriptive statistics and ANCOVA was calculated for the upper and lower thirds of the formative and conventional assessment groups.