The effects of alternatives in assessment (portfolio) on Iranian female EFL tenth- grade highschool students’writing ability and autonomy level.

The present research examined the effect of portfolio assessment (PA) on the writing ability and autonomy level of Iranian EFL learners. To do so, ۲۸ female EFL learners were selected through non-random sampling from among the high school students in Maku (Iran) as the participants of the study. These participants were on tenth-grade and their native language was Azarbaijani, aged from ۱۵ to ۱۶, and would be selected according to their final scores that were between ۱۴ to ۱۸. None of the selected students had the experience of learning English in English language institution. All participants were divided into two equal groups of ۱۴. The first experimental group received writing treatment through portfolio and the second experimental group received writing treatment through product approach. In order to ensure that the participants of two experimental groups had the same characteristics in terms of writing and autonomy, all participants were asked to fill an autonomy questionnaire and participate in a writing test. Throughout the ten weeks in which the experiment was carried, the first experimental group, portfolio, was taught through portfolio assessment technique and the experimental group was taught using the conventional and traditional method. Also, an independent sample t-test was carried out to see the significant differences between the two groups. In order to see the differences within each group, a paired sample t-test was applied. The statistical results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental group portfolio and conventional experimental group. In this study, the portfolio based assessment group performed writing better than experimental group, also the autonomy level of portfolio group was higher. Furthermore, the findings of this study may provide implications for EFL teachers, teacher trainers, and administrators. keywords: Alternative assessment, portfolio, autonomy, writing, EFL.