Teachers' and students' conceptions of assessment in a university EFL preparatory school context

The purpose of this study was to study and investigate teachers and students conceptions of assessment in a university EFL Preparatory School context. Using survey instruments designed for each group, teachers and students provided demographic information about themselves and their conceptions of assessment practices. Data were gathered through the short version of Teacher Conceptions of Assessment Scale (TCoA-IIIA), which had 27 items and Student Conceptions of Assessment Scale (SCoA), which was the adapted form of TCoA. A total of 400 students enrolled at Çağ University Preparatory Department and 31 teachers teaching at Çağ University Preparatory Department completed the questionnaires.The Exploratory Factor Analysis results revealed that there were four factors in the scale affecting teachers conceptions of assessment, namely Student Accountability, School Accountability, Improvement, and Irrelevance as in the original scale of TCoA. There were also affecting students conceptions of assessment, specificically Irrelevant, Affect/Social Benefit, External Attributions and Improvement as in the original scale of SCoA.A Multivariate Analysis of Variances with Pillai's Trace test was employed to investigate whether the significant differences among dependent variables across independent variables existed both for teachers and students. The findings of Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) with Pillai's Trace test indicated that years of teaching experience did not make any significant difference in teachers conceptions of assessment. However, teachers gender and education level showed a significant difference in the conception of School Accountability. The undergraduate institution teachers graduated from did have a significant difference in their conception of Improvement. When student conceptions of assessment were taken into consideration, it was observed that the type of school they graduated from did not have a significant difference in their conceptions of assessment according to the findings of Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). However, there was a significant difference based on gender in students conception of Irrelevance.Key Words: Assessment, Conception, Traditional Assessment, Alternative Assessment,Formative Assessment, Summative Assessment