Effect of portfolio-based assessment on students' achievement and attitudes in foreign language teaching

The assumption that standard assessment is inadequate in assessing student development, what the student knows and what he can do as well, had a great influence on the birth of alternative assessments. Portfolio assessment, the process where teaching and assessment activities are integrated and where there is student involvement and reflection, is the most popular alternative assessment type. Portfolio, which provides richer, more authentic and valid assessment of student performance, enables us to have formative assessment rather than summative. The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of portfolio assessment on achievement and attitudes of students enrolling in a high school preparatory class English course. This study was conducted with 44 students who were students at Maltepe Military High School Preparatory Class in 2004-2005 academic year. Control group and experiment group were formed in this experimental study. The study lasted for twelve weeks. With the control group only traditional methods were used during lessons. With the experiment group traditional methods as well as portfolio activities were used. Both groups were given an achievement test and a scale to measure attitudes towards English at the beginning and at the end of the study to see if portfolio assessment had any effects on achievement and attitudes. Also students in the experiment group were given ten open-ended questions to find out what they thought about portfolio assessment. The results of the study revealed that portfolio had no effect on student achievement and attitudes toward English, but it might have some on students? writing skills. The analysis of the answers students gave to the ten questions showed us that students liked the portfolio study, they tried to produce more quality work, they gained more responsibility towards their own learning and they had positive attitudes towards learning in general. On the other hand, their answers made it clear that portfolio activities were challenging to the students and they must have enough training in the development and assessment of portfolios.