Assessment practices among English teachers in Malaysian secondary schools

Abstract

Previous studies in other countries showed that the implementation of School Based Assessment has given positive impact on teachers’ teaching and learning processes and also students’ growth. Therefore, this study aims to obtain information on English Language Teachers’ assessment practices in Malaysian Seconday Schools.An adaptation of twopart questionnaire from the Assessment Practices Inventory (API) was administered to 49 English teachers in Terengganu, Malaysia followed by a semistructured interview conducted on 15 teachers to get deeper understanding of their assessment practices.The finding of this study shows that teachers’ SBA practices are at an average level.The significant difference between the assessment practices of the teachers who had attended any courses on SBA and the teachers who had not showed that SBA courses do have impact on the effectiveness of SBA implementation.It is hoped that the findings of this survey will contribute to the teachers’ knowledge in creating a culture of practicing a meaningful and effective classroom assessment.If a quality assessment is able to show an accurate data of students’ progress and potential development while simultaneously improve teachers’ teaching and learning processes, the objective of SBA implementation will be considered as successfully achieved.