The effect of formative assessment on learners' test anxiety and assessment preferences in EFL context

Most would agree that the importance of assessment is recognized by teachers; however, all have different perspectives on why assessment is so important and what they can be used for. Therefore, an important part of English language teachers? expertise includes a more careful understanding of assessment. This dissertation sought the effects of formative assessment, a powerful way to improve student learning in reflective process, on students? test anxiety and their assessment preferences.For this study, a formative assessment system was implemented into two different groups, which included same age group freshman students of English Language Teaching Department. The implementation was conducted in Contextual Grammar Course, which is one of the eight other courses of the freshman students. The study adopted a constructivist approach, and both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used for data collection.The changes in students test anxiety and assessment preferences were elicited by two different scales and interviews both at the beginning and end of the implementation. The findings of the study showed that formative assessment had positive effects on reducing students? test anxiety, and it changed most of students? assessment preferences, which were mainly focusing on multiple choice tests.