The Effect of Formative Assessment on EFL Students' Writing Achievements

Abstract

To address the concern of traditional summative-focused evaluation of the writing skill, the current study aims to compare and contrast between three research articles dealing with formative assessment and its impact on the writing skill in an EFL teaching setting. The selected studies operate within different pedagogical contexts, as each work is geographically distinct. The participants consist of EFL learners who vary in age, level, and gender distribution according to each research article. The methods are of experimental nature; the procedures of each research implement qualitative and quantitative designs, each consisting of writing pre-tests and posttests as data collection tools in an experimental approach dealing with multiple groups of participants respectively. The students' reports demonstrate how a formative approach to EFL writing teaching benefits the learning experience to a considerable extent. Written production under a process-oriented evaluation revealed significant performance gains on the part of the learners as most students took a positive stance towards the formative strategies implemented during each study