Examination of Iraqi EFL Teachers’ Attitudes, Intentions, and Practices Regarding Formative Assessment

This study aims to explore the attitudes and practices of Iraqi EFL teachers regarding formative assessment (FA). A total of 102 teachers from primary school to university filled in the Arabic version of Teachers' Conceptions and Practices of Formative Assessment Questionnaire. The questionnaire was translated from English into Arabic first and was validated using confirmatory factor analysis (Hazim Jawad, 2020). Findings showed that a 7-factor model had acceptable fit indices (GFI=0.90, CFI=0.91, RMSEA=0.05). Descriptive statistics were used to explain Iraqi EFL teachers’ attitudes and intentions regarding FA. Findings showed that the majority of Iraqi teachers believe that formative assessment is a useful procedure for measuring students’ learning and is helpful in their education. They also indicated that they have a positive attitude towards FA and are willing to use it. Correlational analysis showed that Affective Attitude, Instrumental Attitude, Subjective Norm, Controllability, and Self-Efficacy were strong predictors of intentions to use formative assessment. However, only Instrumental Attitude had a small significant correlation with the Behavior Scale. In other words, those teachers who believe that FA is useful in improving students learning tend to actually employ FA in their teaching. Findings also showed that female teachers have more positive attitudes towards FA and tend to use it more in their teaching. Implications of the findings for improving English language teaching are discussed.

کلیدواژه ها:

Formative Assessment ، Iraqi EFL teachers ، Teachers' Conceptions and Practices of Formative Assessment Questionnaire ، Theory of Planned Behavior