Investigating the Washback Effect of Quizzes as a Tool of Formative Assessment on Preparatory Year Programme Students’ Performance and Attitude in Saudi Arabia (A Case Study of Umm Alqura University-Al-Qunfuda)

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating the washback effect of comprehensive weekly quizzes (CWQs) as a tool of formative assessment on the Preparatory Year studentsꞌ performance and attitude at Umm Al Qura University (UQU), Saudi Arabia. In the applied Linguistics, the washback effect refers to as the impact of formative assessment on learnersꞌ learning performance and attitude. Most of the researchers point out a positive washback effect of formative assessment while some of a negative impact. The UQU assessment scheme for English course is divided into 20% for coursework/participation as a formative assessment, and 30% for midterm and 50% for final as a summative assessment. The formative assessment scheme at the University is aimed to improve and motivate students learning inside the classroom. The coursework formative assessment impacts course leaning which ultimately affects the midterm and final scores. It is observed that the existing tools of the formative assessment at UQU for Preparatory Year are lacking a positive washback on the studentsꞌ performance and attitude. Therefore, the researcher used an additional tool of comprehensive weekly quizzes as a tool of formative assessment for the coursework assessment. This study adopts a quantitative- experimental method. Thirty students of the Preparatory Year of the 2017/18 academic year were examined for one complete academic year. The control group received the routine tools of formative assessment for coursework followed by summative-midterm and final-exams and the experimental group received comprehensive weekly quizzes along with the routine formative assessment tools followed by summative-midterm and final- exams. The results analyses show that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group. Secondly, a questionnaire was asked from the study samples to know their perspective about the washback effect of the existing formative assessment tools and the CWQs. The five-point Likert scale data analyses pointed out a positive washback effect for CWQs. The CWQs showed a positive washback effect on students' performance and attitude as compared to the existing ways of formative assessment for coursework. The study concludes that the CWQs are a positive addition to the existing means of formative assessment for the coursework learning in the EFL Saudi context to promote the Preparatory Year studentsꞌ performance and attitude.