Secondary school english teachers’ beliefs and practices in applying learning oriented assessment (tìm hiểu về niềm tin và việc Áp dụng Đánh giá hướng tới học tập của giáo viên tiếng anh trường trung học Ở việt nam)

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SAU ĐẠI HỌC DƯƠNG THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO SECONDARY SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES IN APPLYING LEARNING-ORIENTED ASSESSME

INTRODUCTION

Rationale for the research

Assessment is a natural process that is connected with language learning and teaching It serves at least two primary purposes: to promote learning and to measure and interpret what has been learned Unfortunately, large-scale standardized tests have made assessment systematized and often failed to foster the process of learning (Jones, Saville & Salamoura, 2016) According to Gebril (2021), the use of tests to measure performance has negative consequences such as focusing on test preparation rather than actual learning, elevating stress levels for both students and educators, and restricting the range of subjects covered in the curriculum In an effort to mitigate the damaging influence of standardized examinations and reform the assessment system, several types of assessment in education have emerged such as formative assessment, assessment for learning, alternative assessment and dynamic assessment Unlike traditional assessment, they shift the focus towards the learners’ process and outcome of learning (Fazel & Ali, 2022) Among all, learning-oriented assessment (LOA), which was coined by Carless (2007), appears as one of the most popular frameworks that strengthen the learning aspects of assessment and highlight the centrality of student learning in all assessment activities (Carless, 2007; Mok, 2012) Carless et al also claims that LOA “focuses on the quality of student learning outcomes … to help students achieve key disciplinary and generic understanding, values and skills”

(2006, p 9) Despite the noticeable benefits of LOA, this assessment approach has not been applied and developed widely in the Vietnamese context of teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom settings This can be explained by the fact that this is a heavily exam-based context where testing and other summative assessment methods are adopted to measure the language competence of learners Even fewer studies in Vietnam were conducted to explore teachers’ beliefs of LOA

2 and their practices of this assessment approach For this reason, the research was undertaken to investigate Vietnamese teachers’ insights towards LOA, to what extent they implement the principles of LOA and the factors that can impact LOA practices of teachers in the classroom Both beliefs and practices of teachers were involved in this study to examine how convergent they are and the reasons behind the gap (if the two concepts are not congruent with each other), which provides a more comprehensive picture of LOA in Vietnam from the teachers’ perspectives.

Aim and objectives of the research

The writer aims to determine the beliefs towards LOA and LOA practices in the Vietnamese context from teachers’ perspectives This overall aim can be achieved through the following objectives:

(1) To examine Vietnamese teachers’ beliefs about learning-oriented assessment

(2) To explore teachers’ practices of learning-oriented assessment

(3) To identify factors that influence teachers’ employment of LOA in their teaching contexts

Research questions

The study seeks to answer the following research questions:

(1) What are Vietnamese secondary school teachers’ beliefs about learning- oriented assessment?

(2) How do Vietnamese secondary teachers practice learning-oriented assessment?

(3) What are the factors affecting Vietnamese secondary teachers’ practices of LOA in the classroom?

Scope of the research

Learning-oriented assessment is an approach that covers a large number of principles at both macro and micro levels; however, this study only focuses on strategies or skills teachers can employ in classroom assessment In addition, while LOA can be applied in different contexts such as universities and schools, public lower and upper secondary schools in Hanoi were chosen for this research A plethora of research has been conducted in this field about teachers’ perceptions, practices,

3 challenges, and students’ attitudes toward this assessment approach, to name but a few, but this thesis only aims at the beliefs and LOA practices of 104 English teachers from different schools.

Significance of the research

It is anticipated that this research could offer valuable guidance for assessment practices used by language instructors in schools, considering the fundamental principles of LOA Further, the research expects to provide a clear picture for language teachers, researchers, and policymakers about the current situation of LOA in Vietnamese EFL classrooms This serves as the foundation for assessment reform activities for the sake of language learners Specific strategies and practical skills needed for the successful implementation of LOA in language classrooms are also provided in detail, which offers valuable guidelines for English teachers to carry out LOA in their own contexts.

Organization

Chapter 1 is the Introduction, which provides a brief overview of the rationale for the research, the aim and objectives of the research, the research questions, the scope of the research and the significance of the research

Chapter 2 is the Literature review In this section, the theoretical background and previous studies related to the self-assessment will be presented

Chapter 3 describes the Methodology in detail, including the research design, participants, instruments, data collection and data analysis procedures are described in detail

Chapter 4 is the Results and Discussion The researcher presents, analyzes and discusses the research findings The research questions are also addressed in this section

Chapter 5 is the Conclusion, which recapitulates the main points of the thesis as well as states the concluding remarks In addition, the limitations of the current research, implications of the findings, and recommendations for further research are provided

LITERATURE REVIEW

Paradigm shifts in language testing and assessment

Through the history, language testing has experienced revolutionary changes In the “prescientific era”, as called by Spolsky (1978), language teachers relied on intuitive procedures following what would later become known as the

“grammar-translation” method of teaching Tests during this time did not align with any theoretical framework due to the absence of teaching or testing theories With the scientification of language education, Lado (1961) followed the principles of

“audiolingual method” and proposed the first linguistically oriented theoretical framework of language ability The emphasis in this approach was on the requirement for a theoretical definition of language proficiency and its practical implementation in terms of language-specific components that need to be assessed Building on Lado’s framework, the field entered the first scientific era, known as the “structuralist discrete point” by Spolsky (1978), and tests were designed to measure language ability by incorporating various language components and skills They also attempted to create the psychometric properties, including reliability and validity However, changes in linguistic theories and advancements in psychology led to significant shifts in language education Carroll (1961) suggested a significant shift in language assessment, urging for the evaluation of integrative language abilities and components instead of segmenting them into distinct elements This proposal gave rise to the “integrative sociolinguistic era”, as termed by Spolsky (1978) In discussions regarding language proficiency, another breakthrough was witnessed with the emergence of the communicative era in the late 1970s initiated by Canale and Swain (1980), who introduced a new theoretical framework for language teaching

5 and testing They argued that linguistic competence was insufficient for defining and measuring language ability and emphasized the importance of including communication aspects necessary for real-life language usage in the language ability framework

Starting in the 1990s, changes in education and related fields led to a significant shift in approaches to assessing and evaluating learners The field of language assessment was compelled to redirect its focus from modeling language ability to seeking different approaches for evaluating language ability within the realm of learning Academics endeavored to develop alternative assessments that would align with and become part of the learning process Terms such as alternative assessment, authentic assessment, portfolio-based assessment, holistic assessment, and integrative assessment shared the same value as the concept of alternative testing (Cerghit, 2002) Alternative assessment underscores a learning-oriented approach to assessing Purpura (2004) indicates that it enables learners to develop higher levels of thinking by creating or performing purposeful and real-world tasks Alternative forms of assessment also involve learners demonstrating particular skills, writing particular papers, or coming up with responses to open-ended questions In such activities, not only are the final products graded and evaluated, but the process of completing the tasks is also taken into consideration As a result, a superior, richer, and more reflexive level of the teaching-learning process can be reached, which promotes reflection and critical thinking (Chirimbu, 2013)

Brown and Hudson (1998) summarized the defining characteristics of various alternatives in assessment as follows:

(1) make students complete, produce, or execute tasks;

(2) incorporate real-life scenarios or simulations;

(3) blend seamlessly with regular classroom activities;

(4) assess students based on their typical daily classroom performance;

(5) utilize tasks that reflect meaningful learning activities;

(6) emphasize both the processes and the end results;

(7) engage students in higher-order thinking and problem-solving;

(8) offer insights into students' strengths and areas for improvement;

(9) administer assessments with cultural sensitivity;

(10) ensure that human judgment, not automated processes, is used for scoring;

(11) promote transparency in standards and rating criteria; and

(12) call upon teachers to embrace new instructional and assessment responsibilities

Table 1 further clarifies the traditional and alternative language assessment approaches and shows the differences in performance patterns (Armstrong, 1994; Bailey, 1998, p 207)

Table 1: Traditional Assessment and Alternative Assessment

Focus on the “right” answer

Continuous long-term assessment Untimed, free-response format Contextualized communicative tasks Individualized feedback and washback Criterion-referenced scores

Open-ended, creative answers Formative

Oriented to process Interactive performance Fosters intrinsic motivation

Following the modern trends of language assessment, learning-oriented assessment has emerged It inherited several features of the current approaches while representing innovative characteristics, which are going to be mentioned in the following sections.

Types of Assessment

Assessment can be categorized into numerous types depending on different criteria of classification, namely formality, function, measurement, and purposes

“Formal assessments are exercises or procedures specifically designed to tap into a storehouse of skills and knowledge They are systematic, planned sampling techniques constructed to give teacher and student an appraisal of student achievement” (Brown,

It is not standardized and can be implemented in different forms such as spontaneous, unplanned remarks and responses, peripheral notes on papers, feedback on an essay draft, guidance on improving pronunciation of a word, and so forth (Brown, 2004)

With a focus on the ongoing development of learners’ language, their competencies and skills are evaluated in the process of learning Practically every type of formative assessment should serve a formative purpose

Typically, at the end of a course or unit, students are evaluated to see how much of the knowledge and skills they have grasped Examples of summative assessment are end- of-course tests or general proficiency exams

Students are assessed to compare with others locally (e.g., in a class), regionally or nationally Their performance is evaluated based on local, regional, or national norms

A test is used to determine if a student has achieved specific learning goals or standards

Assessment of Learning Thanks to the evidence it provides, learners can improve their learning It is comprehensive, summative, and assessment after a period of learning

Assessment for Learning It informs students about their own learning during learning (Martinez & Lipson, 1989)

Assessment as Learning It refers to the active participation of students in their own assessment, with the goal of exploring the assessment process as a process of learning (Gibbons &

The study capitalizes on learning-oriented assessment, which can be characterized in four strands above To begin with, LOA can be conducted in numerous forms, both formally (e.g., a standardized test) and informally (e.g., classroom observations) Furthermore, LOA is an ongoing process that occurs throughout the whole course of learning; therefore, formative assessment as well as summative assessment are included in LOA Lastly, LOA incorporates assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning (see 2.3.1 for more details).

Learning-oriented assessment

2.3.1 History & Definitions of Learning-oriented assessment

For a long time, assessment of learning (AoL), assessment for learning (AfL), and assessment as learning (AaL) are three main approaches developed to evaluate learners’ learning Among them, AoL was first adopted and took on paramount importance in educational evaluation because assessment served as the primary means of informing policymakers, parents, and employers about students’ learning

As a result, students’ access to higher education was determined thanks to the results of tests or exams Nonetheless, high-stakes summative assessment in the 1990s was accused of having an adverse influence on teachers’ instruction and students’ learning by a large number of studies (Plake & Impara, 1996) Hounsell et al claimed that this type of assessment results in teachers giving low-energy feedback that bears little or no relevance to the subsequent work (2007) In addition, the fact that schools frequently sort and rank students has prevented them from learning efficiently (Stiggins, 2005)

To rectify the situation, Black et al proposed using the formative function of assessment to help it become a constructive aspect of the learning process (2004) According to Martinez and Lipson (1989), to address the weaknesses of summative assessment, a shift from AoL to Afl occur when scholars started to examine assessment during learning instead of after learning By formative assessment learners can evaluate their own learning, which also provides information about their responses to the feedback and the learning milieu where the feedback operates (William, 2011) Thanks to teachers’ timely feedback and corrective instruction, learners can identify how much they achieved in the learning process, outline the next step, and raise their awareness of their future tasks (Baas et al., 2015)

However, arguments erupt when AfL is implemented in real-world settings (Webb & Jones, 2009) because students have to devote an increasing amount of time to assessment practices and less time to studying, which lowers the quality of their learning Therefore, AaL was developed to ease the conflict and resolve the problem (Earl, 2003; Gibbons & Kankkonen, 2011) This approach requires learners to be actively involved in their assessment (Gibbons & Kankkonen, 2011); thus, assessment is considered a learning process According to Zeng, Huang, and Chen

(2018), three significant features of AaL are (1) it is student-centered and views assessment as a process or metacognition, (2) as learners integrate assessment into their learning, they are encouraged to make connections between the concepts through complex tasks, and (3) it emphasizes the importance of “student directness”, which aids in the development of independent learning

Webb and Jones (2009) stated that numerous contradictions exist among the three categories of assessment, leading to several challenges and conflicts and acting as catalysts for change Each approach has distinct and worthwhile goals, but finding the ideal balance among them is not always simple A great deal of research demonstrates that LOA offers a feasible solution to achieve the right balance among them (Mok, 2013) In short, LOA has emerged as an integrative and holistic assessment approach that incorporates and balances AoL, AfL and AaL

To thoroughly comprehend the definition of LOA, it is crucial to clarify what

“learning” means Social constructivism sees learning and meaning-making as an intrinsically social process In other words, “learning is a product of social interaction” (Jones, Saville & Salamoura, 2016, p 46) It occurs through engaging with others in communities of discourse and practice Learning is influenced by these groups through their commonly used tools, symbols, patterns, methods, and principles The environment where students learn together forms a community of practice, and the same goes for each school subject According to Vygotsky, interaction is crucial for development It’s more than just a setting for learning; it is learning But to bring about change, interaction must stretch the learner: “the only good learning is that which is in advance of development” (Vygotsky, 1978, p 89)

In 2004, Purpura was the first to conceptualize the term “learning-oriented assessment”, which includes the actions of collecting, synthesizing, and interpreting students’ performance Decisions made from these interpretations then help enhance the language development of learners From Carless’ view, learning-oriented assessment is an approach that aims at promoting students’ better learning, though it functions as summative or formative (2008) To recap, the scholars offer different perspectives on learning-oriented assessment It can be a process of different actions to help boost the progress of learners or an approach in general This study views

“learning-oriented assessment” as an approach that can take any form or function of assessment to obtain the ultimate goal of enhancing students’ learning development

The three primary principles of this assessment type are “assessment tasks as learning tasks; student involvement in assessment as peer- or self-evaluators; and feedback as feedforward” (Carless, 2007, p 60)

Figure 1: Core principles of LOA (Carless, 2007, p 60)

The first and most important component is assessment tasks as learning tasks; put differently, assessment tasks should align with students’ desired learning outcomes, engage learners, and mirror real-world applications Jones and Saville

(2016) described a learning task as one that encourages the purposeful use of language to express personally meaningful ideas They are not simply quick tests and quizzes, but create chances for different agents to elicit the language (Turner & Purpura, 2017) Typical examples of these tasks are portfolios, collaborative projects, role-plays, and oral presentations Only by experiencing complex and authentic assessment tasks can learners experience them as being meaningful and relevant (Sambell et al., 2013) Theories in ELT (English Language Teaching) have also proven that the tasks that best promote learning are communicative (Samuda & Bygate, 2008) and meaning-focused rather than form-based (Nunan, 2004) The second principle of LOA is student involvement in assessment, facilitating a better grasp of learning outcomes and more active engagement with criteria and standards This will often take the form of peer feedback (Liu & Carless, 2006) or peer assessment (Falchikov, 2005), self-assessment or self-evaluation (Sadler, 1989), and may involve students creating rubrics (Orsmond et al., 2002) and engaging with quality exemplars (Sadler, 2002) Those practices make assessment become

12 something done with learners instead of to learners According to Little and Erickson

(2015), self-assessment plays a crucial part in the learning process and can be a powerful tool to facilitate students’ learning (Babaii et al., 2015) This can work synergistically with peer assessment to foster the learners’ capacity to critically evaluate their work (Dam & Legenhausen, 2011; Reinholz, 2016) Thanks to them, an improvement in the clarity of standards required as well as transparency of the assessment processes is also expected The final strand of LOA is feedback as feedforward In other words, teachers are responsible for providing their students with appropriate feedback on their performances, which they can use to ‘feedforward’ into future work According to Gibbs and Simpson (2004), only when students are engaged with feedback and take action on it can feedback foster learning Moreover, feedback can demonstrate its usefulness if it is founded on effective communication between teachers and students (Hyland, 2000); thus, potential learning gains may be diminished when feedback is not properly conveyed In addition to teachers, peers can be a helpful and valuable source of feedback (Falchikov, 2001) These three strands are not meant to be seen as separate components but as a unified whole For instance, when students are well aware of the required standards and track their progress based on these criteria, feedback can better perform its role In the evaluation process, staff and students’ perspectives on assessment have an impact on these strands For example, teachers’ unfamiliarity with various evaluation types may limit their implementation ability Unless the potential benefits and reasoning behind innovative assessment methods are fully clarified, students could be reluctant to embrace them

Apart from these foundational principles, in 2014, Hamp-Lyons and Green proposed two additional key factors contributing to the success of LOA which are teacher questioning (Black, Harrison et al., 2003) and scaffolding of performance

(Shepard, 2005) To begin with, questioning in formative assessment typically refers to a process of representing and negotiating tasks with students In speaking assessment, quality questioning by teachers and assessors can act as stimulants

13 encouraging students/test candidates to display their best performance beyond the limited categories in rating scales Learner questioning, in a variety of forms and procedures, is also of significant importance Questions can be used for numerous purposes such as back-channeling, requesting clarification, eliciting external feedback, planning learning strategies, self-evaluating, and developing critical thinking (Hamp-Lyons & Tavares, 2011) Scaffolding, a constant and crucial element of teaching and learning languages, is a process of gradually introducing skills or resources to students in a deliberate way According to Maybin, Mercer, and Stierer

(1992), scaffolding portrays the “temporary, but essential, nature of the mentor’s assistance” in supporting learners to carry out tasks successfully (p 186) However, it is not merely synonymous with help It is a unique form of assistance that supports students in progressing towards new abilities, ideas, or levels of comprehension Therefore, scaffolding is a temporary form of support through which a teacher guides a student in learning how to accomplish a task, enabling the student to later complete a similar task independently It is future-oriented and aimed at increasing a learner’s autonomy Therefore, questioning can be categorized as one component of scaffolding Effective scaffolding can only occur when teachers are able to closely observe students’ learning and work contingently and in real-time with students in language activities Scaffolding is incredibly beneficial, but there are concerns about

“unintentional scaffolding” that tends to creep into speaking tests without the interlocutor or assessor realizing it (Galaczi, 2008)

Teachers’ beliefs and practices

When it comes to teaching practices, teachers tend to follow their core beliefs (Nespor, 1987) According to psychologists, beliefs are complex mental constructs that have an impact on human behaviors (Pajares, 1992) Parajes also claims that they can only be deducted from individuals’ speech and actions, and cannot be directly observed or measured (1992) Using people’s beliefs to predict their behaviors and how they approach and organize tasks and problems is much easier than based on their knowledge (Bryan, 2012) In fact, beliefs exert a powerful effect on perception that tends to bring about self-fulfilling prophecies They then influence individuals’ behaviors in a way that serves to reinforce the underlying belief (Pajares, 1992) The implication is that until there emerges a shift in teachers’ views or interpretation of classroom events, a change in classroom practices is likely to happen

Because of various contextual factors, teachers’ perceptions, behaviors, and how these are shaped are closely intertwined In a particular context, teachers tend to demonstrate what they believe in practice, to some extent To take one example, those who find LOA valuable will probably face a dilemma between conflicting roles Besides offering objective evaluation of learners’ linguistic proficiency, teachers have to employ assessment in a way that can instruct and promote learning (Rea-Dickens, 2006) According to Ewell, the dichotomy occurs when there is a need for both academic enhancement as well as external accountability Boud (2000) also

29 holds that on the one hand, assessment has to serve the summative function for certification purposes On the other hand, it is expected to foster students’ learning through formative assessment More importantly, assessment practices will vary in different or even similar settings, given any purposes of evaluation (Cheng et al.,

2008) In detail, fellow teachers working in the same educational context may differ in assessment respect, and each individual may have conflicting perceptions simultaneously (Brown & Gao, 2015; Davison, 2004).

Previous studies on teachers’ beliefs and practices of LOA

In 2013, Ali carried out a qualitative investigation to examine perceptions of

25 EFL/ESL teachers regarding the potential and obstacles of incorporating LOA at the College of Applied Sciences in Oman The results indicated that all participants endorsed the integration of LOA in language classrooms because it encourages active learning among students As per the study, it was suggested that both teachers and students receive training on self and peer assessment, ensure that assessment tasks are in line with the language curriculum learning objectives, and provide timely feedback

In a cross-contextual study, Fazel and Ali (2022) studied the understanding and utilization of LOA among English for academic purposes (EAP) instructors in two private higher education settings: Canada and Malaysia Their research also delved into the benefits and challenges that either facilitate or hinder the implementation of LOA The findings revealed that 95% of the instructors acknowledged the necessity and significance of LOA, with only 35% of them being acquainted with the term LOA Moreover, it appeared that assessment tasks were underutilized by teachers in both settings as learning tasks Students’ participation in assessment was also inadequate among EAP teachers, with more Canadian teachers implementing it compared to those in Malaysia However, all teachers reported regularly providing both formal and informal feedback to support student learning

In addition to those contexts, a quantitative study was by Alsowat in 2022 with an attempt to explore Saudi EFL school teachers’ knowledge, practices and

30 challenges of LOA in their language classrooms based on three core principles proposed by Carless (2007) The results reported Saudi EFL teachers’ moderate level of knowledge regarding LOA as well as inefficient practices of LOA principles This can be explained by different individual, contextual and organizational constraints such as time budget, large class size, a lack of training and an exam-oriented education system

Overall, there is a growing body of research conducted in several Asian countries to investigate various aspects of LOA One common observation is that teachers, in general, appreciate LOA, but this belief is not consistent with their actual practices due to their lack of knowledge or contextual constraints However, hardly any studies mentioned detailed strategies or skills for implementing this assessment in class These studies have also centered on the contexts and participants, which differ from the one investigated in the current study These reasons motivated the researcher to explore strategies in LOA that Vietnamese teachers of English in secondary schools have employed in their teaching.

Chapter summary

In this chapter, the researcher provided an overview of the theoretical background of the present study The first section depicted the paradigm shifts in the language assessment history, which was followed by different types of assessment Furthermore, theories related to learning-oriented assessment were presented Specifically, this study aligns with Carless and views LOA as an approach that aims to promote learning LOA has been proven to bring numerous benefits but can trigger challenges for practitioners An overview of three frameworks for LOA was generalized before the researcher drew out five practical classroom strategies of LOA, namely “task design for effective learning”, “self and peer assessment”, “feedback”,

“effective teacher questioning” and “scaffolding of performance” The following section discussed different perspectives on teachers’ beliefs and practices In the final section, several previous studies on teachers’ beliefs and practices of LOA were mentioned

METHODOLOGY

Research context

The study is situated in the ELT (English Language Teaching) in Vietnam In Vietnam, students’ language proficiency is mostly assessed by traditional forms of assessment, which require rote memorization and repetitive exercises (Ngo, 2024) Those assessment methods are efficient in evaluating learners’ memorization ability instead of their actual communicative competence using the target language (Thanh,

2016) The dominance of the end-of-year summative assessment exacerbates the situation because the crucial role of continuous or formative assessment in supporting learning is overlooked (Duyen, 2019; Thuy & Anh, 2021) In addition, according to

Ai, Nhu, and Thuy (2019), students can obtain varying feedback and results for similar performances due to insufficient training and limited standardization processes for EFL teachers in Vietnam

For the past decades, several policies have been implemented to reform the education system In 2001, the Ministry of Education and Training announced the 10- year master plan for educational development, marking a shift towards active learning, critical thinking, and self-learning (Supalak, 2002) Governmental policies endorsed formative and alternative forms of assessment at all educational levels For instance, the goal of assessing primary school students is to encourage their progress and help them reach their full potential, as stated in Circular 30 (MOET, 2014a) and Circular 27 (MOET, 2020) Similarly, according to Dispatch 5333 (MOET, 2014b), secondary schools are required to employ various assessment forms, provide both quantitative and qualitative feedback, and include teacher, peer, and self-assessment For the promotion of student-centered classrooms, students are encouraged to be involved in thinking processes, class participation, and problem-solving, unlike

32 conventional lessons where they passively gain knowledge from teachers These initiatives have led to massive changes in classroom assessment in the Vietnamese context Alternative assessment practices such as portfolios, self-assessment, peer- assessment, and weekly reporting have attracted the attention of Vietnamese educators over the last few years

However, structural and sociocultural variables are a hurdle for teachers in implementing these alternative assessment practices Concerning the assessment system in Vietnam, end-of-school examinations or summative assessment are the primary tools employed for the selection of students for elite schools and universities (Brown et al., 2009) Therefore, classroom teaching, learning, and assessment practices must be designed to help students perform well in summative tests and somehow disregard how they improve during the learning process Regarding cultural barriers, students in Asian contexts are not willing to evaluate others’ performance openly According to Carson and Nelson (1996), learners find it more comfortable to undertake self-assessment than peer-assessment because of the losing-face culture, where they consider unsatisfactory comments to be negative Thanh and Gillies

(2010) also revealed that students fear giving incorrect responses or opinions, which triggers their hesitation to participate in class discussions Furthermore, only when they are in a safe environment do Vietnamese students interact; therefore, teachers should factor in Vietnamese learning culture when designing face-to-face discussions

Fundamental changes in the Vietnamese education system have been made to assess students’ language proficiency in a more effective and holistic way In addition to summative tests, therefore, alternative assessment methods such as self-assessment or peer-assessment have gained in popularity in Vietnamese educational institutions Despite this, these practices have yet to be implemented successfully due to structural and cultural factors To dig deeper into this problem, this research was conducted with the participation of teachers from secondary schools in Vietnam The in-depth interviews with the teachers of English in secondary schools will help explore

33 challenges they encounter when employing alternative assessment in general and learning-oriented assessment in specific.

Research design

The study aims to explore the perceptions of Vietnamese secondary teachers of English towards learning-oriented assessment How the teachers practice this assessment approach in their teaching context is also investigated Therefore, the research seeks to answer the research questions as follows

RQ 1: What are Vietnamese secondary school teachers’ beliefs about learning-oriented assessment?

The research investigates to what extent the participants believe on specific classroom strategies of LOA based on five core principles of LOA They are assessment tasks as learning tasks, scaffolding, self-assessment and peer-assessment, teacher questioning and feedback as feedforward

RQ 2: How do Vietnamese secondary teachers practice learning-oriented assessment?

In addition to beliefs, the frequency that secondary teachers of English employ those strategies are examined The researcher then analyzes data collected in the two sections in order to determine the gap between beliefs and practices of the targeted teachers

RQ 3: What are the factors affecting Vietnamese secondary teachers’ practices of LOA in the classroom?

The study also aims to identify underlying reasons behind the gap between beliefs and practices of secondary school teachers in their teaching contexts

Addressing these research questions provides a comprehensive understanding of how secondary school teachers of English perceive learning-oriented assessment, how they practice the strategies and what can support and prevent them from employing LOA in the Vietnamese context

To address the research questions, a mixed methods study was conducted According to Migiro and Maganabi (2010), the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods offers a comprehensive research approach, wherein each

34 method’s results are used to enhance and complement the other Qualitative methods can provide more in-depth understanding of quantitative findings, while quantitative methods can provide statistical support to qualitative findings, allowing for data triangulation (Dornyei, 2007) The use of a questionnaire and interviews is consistent with the study’s goals of exploring secondary teachers’ beliefs and practices of LOA The questionnaire is tailored to address the first and second research questions, while the third research question is answered using data obtained from in-depth interviews This allows for a deeper exploration of the respondents’ perceptions and the factors influencing their practices of LOA in classrooms The current investigation follows an explanatory sequential design, where quantitative data collection and analysis precede the collection and analysis of qualitative data This design supports a comprehensive examination of the current status and aids in highlighting factors that contribute to the descriptive nature of the research as a whole.

Sampling and Participants

The research was conducted with the participation of 104 English teachers of lower and higher secondary schools in an English teaching community in Vietnam Convenience sampling was employed to select participants in the survey According to Dửrnyei (2007), convenience sampling is a nonprobability or nonrandom sampling method It involves selecting members of the target population who meet specific criteria, such as being easily accessible, geographically close, available at a specific time, or willing to participate The subjects of this current research were selected among teachers of English in different lower and high secondary schools in Vietnam due to the ease of access to the cohorts of teachers and their willing desire to engage in the study However, obvious disadvantages of this sampling method are that it is likely to be biased (Mackey & Gass, 2015) and cannot be representative of the population (Bornstein et al., 2013) As a result, the findings of this research do not attempt to generalize the whole population The demographics of the survey participants are represented in Table 4

Table 4: Characteristics of the survey respondents

Educational level Lower secondary school 64 61.5%

Type of institution Public school 68 65.4%

As illustrated in Table 4, participants teaching at lower secondary schools accounted for 61.5% while there were 38.5% of teachers from higher secondary schools Teachers from both public and private schools joined the survey, in which over half of them (65.4%) work at a public school Teachers’ experiences varied, the most were between three to ten years (43.3%) and the least for those with more than

10 years of experience in teaching (15.4%) Prior to conducting the study, the researcher briefed the participants on the research objectives and assured them that their identity, responses, and personal information would remain confidential

For the interview section in this study, purposive sampling, which is “the deliberate choice of a participant due to the qualities the participant possesses” (Etikan, Musa & Alkassim, 2016, p 2), was adopted to select individuals based on their opinions and experiences in the survey In other words, the researcher outlines the information needed and then finds who is willing to provide the information (Bernard, 2002) It is apparent that conducting interviews with all surveyed participants is laborious and unnecessary because the number of qualitative data from open-ended questions in the gathered survey is quite overwhelming As a result, purposive sampling is a more advantageous and less time-consuming method The

36 purposive sampling of this study applied two criteria The first is that the interviewees had responded to the survey and consented to take part in the interview willingly The second criterion is that there is a big gap in their beliefs and practices of LOA strategies in their teaching context

Table 5: Characteristics of the interviewees

Gender Female Female Female Female Female

2 years 7 years 19 years 3 years 8 years

It is clearly seen in Table 5 that there were five secondary teachers participating in the semi-structured in-depth interviews Three out of them teach English at higher secondary schools and two participants are teachers of English in lower secondary schools Three and two interviewees work at public schools and private institutions, respectively Their years of teaching experience varied between

2 years and 19 years The differences in terms of teaching environment and experience provided different perspectives about the practices of LOA in classrooms.

Data collection instruments

The questionnaire and in-depth interviews were employed to collect data for this study The former allows the researcher to gather data from a large and diverse sample, providing a broad representation of the target population while the latter enables the researcher to delve more deeply into the participants’ insights and collect more information in detail

The questionnaire was designed with significant conscientiousness by the researcher In particular, the survey items were carefully selected based on the theoretical background concerning learning-oriented assessment The writer then discussed with the supervisor, a specialist in the field of Language Testing and Assessment, for further comments A pilot survey was also carried out thanks to the support from a group of secondary teachers of English to evaluate the appropriateness and feasibility of the questionnaire regarding comprehensibility, coherence and language The final version was then completed after refinements and adjustments based on the constructive feedback Finally, to prevent any misunderstanding of the questionnaire, it was translated into Vietnamese before being distributed to the target population

The questionnaire consists of two parts with a total of 56 items and there are 28 items in each part Part I aims to determine how the teachers perceive core principles of learning-oriented assessment In detail, the first four items (1-4) are expected to gain the participants’ insights about the first principle which is assessment tasks as learning tasks The next six items (5-10) help the research to explore to what extent they believe in the importance of scaffolding for formative assessment activities Their beliefs about the third principle self-assessment and peer-assessment are investigated by the next eight items (11-18) Another five items (19-23) are employed to investigate how the teachers believe in the significance of teacher questioning Finally, their beliefs about the fifth principle, feedback as feedforward, are figured out through the last five items (24-28) In this section, the participants share their opinions by rating the items on a 5-point Likert scale, with 1 being “strongly disagree”, 2 being “disagree”, 3 being “neither agree or disagree”, 4 being “agree” and 5 being “strongly agree” Part II examines the frequency with which teachers practice LOA strategies in their teaching contexts A 5- point Likert scale is still employed in this part with 1 being “never (0%)”, 2 being “rarely

(< 10%)”, 3 being “sometimes (30-40%)”, 4 being “frequently (70-80%)”, and 5 being

“always (100%)” The detailed structure of the questionnaire is presented in Table 4 below

Indicators Item Sources Answer method

Assessment tasks as learning tasks 1-2 Carless (2007) Teachers’ beliefs

Scaffolding for formative assessment activities

Self-assessment and peer assessment

14 Orsmond et al (2002) 15-18 Brown (2004) Teacher questioning 19-23 Walsh & Sattes (2016)

After the data collection and data entrance, 104 responses from the questionnaire were received The Cronbach’s alpha value for the questionnaire, which was analyzed in SPSS version 27, was 0.955, which indicates good consistency and reliability of the measurement

Apart from the questionnaire, semi-structured in-depth interviews were also organized since this interview instrument is ideally designed to explore participants’

39 thoughts and opinions In this study, the interviews aimed to further clarify the targeted teachers’ responses to the questionnaire and explore if there are any obstacles to the application of LOA strategies in different teaching contexts in Vietnam The questions for the semi-structured interviews were included in the interview protocol

The interview protocol contains two main sections Two questions were included in the first section, in which the participants’ overall evaluation of this assessment approach was explored The second section begins with an open-ended question that allows the interviewees to explain the big gap between their beliefs and practices of LOA strategies in their teaching contexts Based on the challenges encountered by teachers when employing LOA in the Literature Review section, sub- questions were also prepared in order to investigate factors affecting how teachers apply the LOA strategies in their classrooms The factors are training programs, current assessment system, class size, time matter and students’ attitudes

It was then revised after receiving comments from the supervisor and piloted interviews with two teachers in the sample Their responses were not included in the final analysis Based on their valuable feedback, adjustments in terms of wording were made to complete the final version of the interview protocol Finally, all interviews were conducted in Vietnamese to provide comfort for participants to share their opinions and experiences at ease.

Data collection procedure

The questionnaire was officially circulated to teachers in the teaching community during the course of 12 days from May 2nd to May 13th, 2024 It was administered online through a secure platform to easily reach teachers from different regions of the country in a variety of teaching contexts 104 responses were collected and then analyzed confidentially The Vietnamese version of the questionnaire was administered to the target population so that the participants can thoroughly comprehend the LOA strategies It took the respondents approximately 15 minutes to complete the survey

After collecting and analyzing the quantitative data, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with the aim of gathering qualitative data on factors affecting teachers’ practices of LOA The interviews were carried out online through Zoom with an average duration of 20 minutes Vietnamese was used during the interviews so that the interviewees can respond comfortably in their native language Subsequently, the responses were transcribed and translated into English for the data analysis process.

Data analysis procedure

Two data collection instruments were employed in this study, namely questionnaire and semi-structured interviews; therefore, both descriptive statistics and content analysis methods were applied to analyze the data

There are three main steps for the questionnaire data analysis

First, the researcher carefully read the responses and prepared the data for analysis In detail, the data was examined thoroughly to (1) check for completeness and accuracy and remove those that are incomplete or do not make sense, (2) evaluate the appropriation of the answers and (3) see whether the given data answered the questions

Second, clean data collected from 104 responses were analyzed through the software SPSS 27.0 In each section, the degrees of agreement and frequency of each option were calculated in percentages Results obtained from the survey helped answer the first and second research question, which aim to investigate the targeted teachers’ beliefs and practices of LOA in different teaching contexts

Finally, the results were visualized in different forms They were not only presented in written descriptions and numbers, but also in bar charts to generalize the data

In order to answer the third research question about the factors influencing the employment of LOA strategies in secondary schools, the interview transcripts were synthesized and analyzed using the content analysis method According to White and

Marsh (2006, p 30), a study using quantitative content analysis consists of ten steps:

(1) “Establish hypothesis or hypotheses”, (2) “Identify appropriate data (text or other communicative material)”, (3) “Determine sampling method and sampling unit”, (4)

“Draw sample”, (5) “Establish data collection unit and unit of analysis”, (6)

“Establish coding scheme that allows for testing hypothesis”, (7) “Code data”, (8)

“Check for reliability of coding and adjust coding process if necessary”, (9) “Analyze coded data, applying appropriate statistical test(s)”, (10) “Write up results” In this section of the current study, I will present four main steps in the procedure of qualitative data analysis Firstly, the researcher read through or examined the data to become familiar with it Secondly, coding units were identified employing the blended approach which is a combination of deductive coding and inductive coding According to Miles, Huberman, and Saldana (2013), deductive coding is a pre- defined list of codes created in a so-called coding frame before the data are coded In this study, those codes are restricted instruction time, test-oriented culture, big class size, insufficient training, time matter, heavy workload, students’ attitudes and students’ levels On the other hand, two codes, teacher competence and parents’ attitudes, were developed directly from the data by using phrases or terms used by the participants themselves This is called inductive coding Thirdly, the data were analyzed by the coding units Lastly, the data were summarized in a frequent table including the tally of the number of times a coding unit appeared.

Chapter summary

This chapter has given a description of the research context and those who participated in the study In addition, it clearly presents the instruments, which are questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, the procedures of data collection and data analysis In short, the researcher first designed the questionnaire that then received 104 responses After that, the SPSS software program was utilized to analyze the data collected thoroughly A subset of survey respondents was chosen for the semi-structured in-depth interviews to dig deeply into their insights Lastly, the data from those interviews were analyzed qualitatively by the researcher

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Teachers’ beliefs of learning-oriented assessment

4.1.1 Assessment tasks as learning tasks

The first strategy of LOA that EFL teachers are encouraged to apply in their classrooms is “assessment tasks as learning tasks” This strategy is clarified by four practices and the degree of teachers’ agreement on them is displayed in Figure 6

Figure 6: Teachers’ beliefs - Assessment tasks as learning tasks

Looking at Figure 6, it can be asserted that there was broad agreement among teachers on these four task design practices In detail, most participants (approximately 90%) agreed and strongly agreed on the fact that assessment tasks should be aligned with the learning outcomes of students and they should mirror real- world applications A somewhat similar pattern was witnessed in the third practice,

43 although to a lesser extent (79.8%) Lastly, a large number of respondents (57.7%) believed that meaning-focused assessment tasks are better at promoting students’ learning than those focusing on form However, around one third of teachers still showed a neutral attitude toward this statement From the findings, almost all of the targeted teachers shared a similar perspective on effective LOA task design with the previous studies

4.1.2 Scaffolding for formative assessment activities

The participants’ beliefs on the scaffolding principle in formative assessment activities were also investigated in the questionnaire The results are generalized in

Figure 7: Teachers’ beliefs - Scaffolding for formative assessment activities

As can be inferred from the data, most teachers held a belief that scaffolding is of utmost importance to support learners To be specific, almost all of them (98%) thought it is crucial for teachers to assess the task’s relative difficulty to ensure that it challenges them enough while not discouraging them from those that are beyond their ability Similarly, teachers’ instructions and support towards students

44 completing a task were believed to be necessary by four-fifths of those responding to the survey Besides teachers’ guidance, their demonstrations help students comprehend the requirements more thoroughly This practice is agreed by 83% of the participants and none disagreed or strongly disagreed Other ways EFL teachers can employ to progress learners are assessing their related background knowledge before introducing a new concept, including language in a sensory context and designing assessment tasks that develop their metacognition 85%, 81% and 79% of the respondents shared the belief in these strategies, respectively

4.1.3 Self-assessment and peer-assessment

To determine to what extent secondary teachers of English believe in LOA, it is instructive to examine their beliefs on two popular forms of alternative assessment, namely self-assessment and peer assessment As summarized in Figure 8, a profound proportion of teachers perceived the significance of self-assessment and peer- assessment, 79% and 85% respectively Getting students informed of the purposes of these assessment methods was also believed to be necessary by 92% of the teachers About three-fifths agreed and strongly agreed on getting students involved in the process of creating the assessment rubrics or criteria, while one-third of the survey takers remained neutral According to the interviewees, their students did not show any enthusiasm or needed to be more competent to participate in the procedure of completing the criteria of assessment tasks However, most teachers had firm beliefs about explaining to learners those rubrics or criteria so that they could be more likely to fulfill their teachers’ expectations To prevent students from being perplexed, a large percentage of participants thought that providing clear instructions and model responses was a critical factor Subjectivity is a primary drawback of self and peer assessment; thus, almost all teachers recognized the importance of encouraging their students to give impartial comments to ensure the highest quality of self and peer assessment Last but not least, the assessment can effectively boost student learning in the following period only when learners are instructed to complete reflection tasks, which is agreed and strongly agreed by 94% of the teachers

Figure 8: Teachers’ beliefs - Self-assessment and peer-assessment

The teachers' opinions on five certain practices of “Teacher questioning” strategy were also investigated Figure 9 indicated that the majority of the participants were aware of the importance of graded language This is because only when the question’s difficulty level is appropriate for the learners’ level of proficiency can they thoroughly understand the questions; thus, teachers can assess their students’ knowledge and skills Effective questions should be open-ended because they can provoke learners’ thinking For instance, when teachers ask questions beginning with What is your view of …? or What alternatives are there …? students have to brainstorm and share their thoughts instead of just saying Yes or No This principle was agreed by almost all of the participants In addition, 83.7% of them believed that students should be provided with time and space so that they can think or discuss their ideas with their partners; as a result, they can produce proper and quality responses

To avoid excluding any individuals in a class, different selection strategies like group feedback to the whole class, or whiteboard response were thought to be used instead

46 of merely nominating volunteer students Finally, almost 90% of the questionnaire respondents perceived that teachers should collect and make use of learners’ responses to adjust the following lessons and give students feedback or improvement

Figure 9: Teachers’ beliefs - Teacher questioning 4.1.5 Feedback as feedforward

The last strategy included in the survey is “feedback as feedforward” In other words, the teachers are responsible for providing students feedback that they can use to feedforward into future performances To begin with, feedback was agreed to play a fundamental role in fostering student learning by a significant proportion of the teachers in the community The participants also saw the significance of mentioning both students’ plus sides of their current performances and aspects that need improving This can help learners realize their strengths and weaknesses, which fosters confidence and a sense of ongoing development In order to better support students in making progress, 94.3% of teachers believed that teachers take responsibility for providing necessary information and suggestions For example, teachers can help their students enhance listening skills by equipping them with effective listening techniques and useful sources of listening Students can only make use of teacher feedback to enhance future work when they fully comprehend the

47 comments as well as what is required to improve Therefore, 94.2% of the survey participants thought checking students’ understanding of the feedback is of importance After being aware of what to do next, students should be given time and space to self-reflect and complete detailed action plans for progress in the next learning period, according to up 89.4% of the teachers

Figure 10: Teachers’ beliefs - Feedback as feedforward

Teachers’ practices of learning-oriented assessment

4.2.1 Assessment tasks as learning tasks

Although holding firm beliefs in the principle “assessment tasks as learning tasks”, there was a negligible proportion of the teachers performing these activities all the time, as presented in Figure 11 In detail, 45.2% of the participants designed assessment tasks aligned with students’ desired learning outcomes on an occasional basis while 34.6% did this frequently Almost 8% of the teachers rarely designed those assessment tasks and none of them never performed this practice A somewhat similar pattern was witnessed in the other three practices, namely providing real- world assessment tasks, providing interactive assessment tasks and providing meaning-focused assessment tasks

Figure 11: Teachers’ practices - Assessment tasks as learning tasks

4.2.2 Scaffolding for formative assessment activities

Looking at Figure 12, it is immediately apparent that more than half of the respondents provided achievable assessment tasks, supported and guided them to get the tasks done, and made demonstrations before students could perform the tasks on their own, on a frequent basis Around one-fifth of them always or sometimes offered those practices and almost no one selected the option “never” Furthermore, before introducing a new concept, 14.4%, 44.2% and 33.7% of the teachers always, frequently, and sometimes assessed prior knowledge of students, respectively Compared to the practices mentioned above, a larger percentage of teachers (6.7%) hardly ever performed this practice while 1% said never In organizing formative assessment tasks, about 20% of teachers always made the language more accessible and engaging by embedding pictures, videos or other types of realia The proportion for the “frequently” pattern was more considerable, standing at 36.5% The number of those who occasionally and seldom did this was somewhat similar, in the vicinity of 20% Those who provided formative assessment tasks developing learners’ metacognition all the time only made up a meager proportion, while the figure for

49 those who usually and sometimes did it was triple Up to 21.2% of the participants rarely performed this kind of activity The percentage of teachers who never took metacognition into consideration stood at shy of 2%

Figure 12: Teachers’ practices - Scaffolding for formative assessment activities 4.2.3 Self-assessment and peer-assessment

Figure 13: Teachers’ practices - Self-assessment and peer assessment

Figure 13 summarizes the frequency of the practices related to self-assessment and peer-assessment in classrooms Of the 104 subjects who took part in the survey, just under one-tenth replied that they applied self-assessment to their students all the time 28.8% of them frequently required learners to assess their own performances, while almost 40% claimed to employ this assessment method only on an occasional basis The figures for “rarely” and “never” choices were relatively high compared to other strategies, 16.3% and 7.7%, respectively The teachers had a tendency to employ peer assessment with a higher frequency In detail, up to 12.5% and 40.4% of those questioned reported that they always and often asked students to assess their classmates’ performances, respectively There were fewer people stating

“sometimes” and “never”, whereas a slightly higher rate said “rarely” The participants showed a similar trend in the third strategy, in which students were clearly informed of the purposes of self and peer assessment, but to a more significant extent in terms of those who said “hard ever” About getting learners involved in the procedure of creating assessment rubrics or criteria, just under 5% of those completing the questionnaire (4.8%) claimed always The figures for “frequently” and “sometimes” were 22.1% and 18.3% However, 33.7% and 21.2% of the participants, the highest proportion of this category, shared that they rarely or never involve students in this process Realizing the importance of getting learners to fully understand the requirement, a large number of the teachers provided clear guidance and model responses quite often Approximately one-third of those who responded admitted to providing this kind of support from time to time The last three strategies experienced a somewhat similar tendency Specifically, the highest proportion belongs to the “frequently” category, in the vicinity of 40% The rates of “sometimes” and “rarely” categories were relatively high, which stood at around 20%

As can be inferred from the data in Figure 14, one-fourth of those responding to the questionnaire modified the language of their questions on all occasions More than half of them claimed to practice this very often, only 22.1% said sometimes and

51 none of them rarely or never get the question language adjusted It showed a similar trend in the next two strategies, which are making open-ended questions and providing students with opportunities to think or discuss before producing a response Teachers were also aware of varying techniques for selecting students in order not to exclude any students in class Therefore, the majority of the respondents practice this strategy on a very frequent basis Only 5.8% of them selected the “sometimes” option and none of them said “rarely” or “never” did this There were also numerous teachers who always and usually adjusted their lessons based on responses from students About one-fifth could only make use of these responses on a frequent basis This is primarily due to the large class size in secondary schools in Vietnam, according to what the teachers shared in the interviews A class with about 40 to 50 students prevented teachers from practicing teacher questioning effectively because they were not able to ask questions or select every single student to answer questions in each lesson

Figure 14: Teachers’ practices - Teacher questioning 4.2.5 Feedback as feedforward

Feedback is also one crucial aspect of promoting student learning Being aware of this, students always and frequently got their performances commented on by

52 almost all of the teachers surveyed Similarly, those teachers included both the positive and negative sides of their performances when providing feedback on a very frequent basis More importantly, in order to help students improve their future work, teachers are suggested to recommend practical ways of learning Just under 70% of the participants said that they always or frequently did this However, up to 32.7% occasionally put forward suggestions to their students Moreover, one-fourth of the respondents could always ensure that learners thoroughly comprehend what teachers commented and required them to do to move forward Almost double the proportion of teachers claimed to complete this often This strategy was rarely or never done by about 14% of teachers

Figure 15: Teachers’ practices - Feedback as feedforward

Apart from providing feedback and suggestions, requiring students to self- reflect and complete future action plans is also of utmost importance, which helps them achieve better results However, less than one-fifth of the participants could do this all the time, while 38.5% could employ this strategy normally Those selecting the “sometimes” and “rarely” options accounted for 26% and 16%, respectively As mentioned by teachers in the semi-structured interviews, the biggest challenge for

53 them to provide proper feedback is the big class size There is a large number of students in each class, about 30 in private schools and 40-50 in public schools; therefore, it was merely impossible for teachers to give detailed feedback on every task to all students

In summary, several disparities were observed between the participants’ beliefs and their actual classroom practices regarding LOA principles Notably, a considerable gap existed between teachers’ professed commitment to the “assessment tasks as learning tasks” strategy and their implementation in class While the majority of teachers acknowledged the pivotal role of scaffolding in fostering learning, their classroom practices demonstrated a high degree of consistency with this belief Conversely, despite expressing strong support for self- and peer-assessment, teachers infrequently employed these formative evaluation methods In terms of teacher questioning, a positive alignment between beliefs and practices was evident, as a large number of teachers routinely utilized this instructional technique Finally, the participants reported a favorable disposition toward and consistent use of feedback as a tool for facilitating learner development.

Factors affecting teachers’ practices

In order to answer the third research question, the data gathered from the semi- structured in-depth interviews of five secondary teachers were carefully analyzed in order to explore factors affecting teacher practices of LOA in classrooms There are ten codes in total, as displayed in Figure 16 As can be referred from the data, students’ level and big class size are mentioned most often by the interviewees They are followed by students’ attitudes that repeat 16 times Those interviewed also brought up time matter, insufficient training and test-oriented culture around 10 times The second least popular codes are restricted instruction time and heavy workload Lastly, teacher competence and parents’ attitudes were only mentioned once by one teacher

Figure 16: Factors affecting teacher practices of LOA

The factors were classified into four main categories: institute related, teacher related, learner related and parents related Each type is described in detail as follows

The institute-related factors affecting LOA practices are divided into four main categories, namely restricted instruction time, test-oriented culture, big class size and insufficient training

Three teachers supposed that 45 minutes per lesson is insufficient for them to implement LOA practices The following excerpts exemplify the theme:

“… class time is too short for me to employ group work, interactive activities or similar tasks of LOA …” (Teacher 4)

“45 minutes is not enough If a lesson lasts 90 minutes, teachers can provide different activities that require students to interact with each other and apply scaffolding more effectively.” (Teacher 1)

Another constraint teachers face in employing LOA, as stated by four out of five interviewees, was coded test-oriented culture For example,

“School tests mostly focus on assessing grammar and vocabulary; therefore, students only want to complete the tasks that can help them obtain better scores.”

“I think the current testing and assessment system is grammar translation oriented, which makes teachers’ class activities mostly focus on developing students’ knowledge of grammar and vocabulary instead of English communication competence.” (Teacher 2)

“I hope that all tests will be removed to reduce student pressure on scores Now, they only learn to remember grammar and vocabulary for better test results It would be great if there is only one end-of-term exam where students are assessed in terms of four different skills They will have to constantly learn and improve themselves in the whole term, but without test anxiety (Teacher 3)

The third factor, which was quoted by all teachers in the interviews, was coded as “big class size” Several examples of this are

“In my opinion, learning-oriented assessment is more effective when employed in a class with about 10 to 15 students.” (Teacher 1)

“It is almost impossible to apply LOA strategies in a class of 40 students in a public school.” (Teacher 1)

“Big class size is a problem, a very serious problem.” (Teacher 3)

“For example, when students are assigned a project, it is not easy to support all groups of students.” (Teacher 5)

All teachers stated that they have never received any proper training in learning-oriented assessment, which is a serious obstacle to appropriately employing LOA in classrooms

“I think it (no training) is a problem because teachers are not sure of how to employ it in a certain context For example, I don’t know the whole procedure or how to create assessment rubrics that are aligned with LOA principles.” (Teacher 2)

“I got no training on this … just applied the strategies by instinct or what I already knew.” (Teacher 3)

“We should be provided with comprehensive training so that we will know how to employ the strategies with our students in our certain teaching contexts.”

Content analysis of the interviews with participants revealed that three teacher- related challenges lead to difficulties in practicing LOA in classrooms Each of these challenges is exemplified and explained in the following sections

Four teachers achieved consensus on the fact that LOA activities take up a large amount of time The other teacher, also the most experienced one, shared that time is not a big issue for her because she has been working on this for a very long period of time (19 years of experience)

“It often takes me a lot of time to prepare and organize these activities The most time-consuming task is to design the marking rubrics.” (Teacher 1)

“Those tasks definitely take up a lot of time.” (Teacher 2)

“The time to prepare and instruct students to complete their project is relatively long.” (Teacher 2)

“Definitely yes (time-consuming) For instance, it takes me quite a lot of time just to modify the content and activities in textbooks.” (Teacher 4)

Two teachers shared that besides teaching, they had to complete a laundry list of tasks such as invigilation, marking exam papers and organizing workshops for students

“Apart from teaching, the time spent on paperwork or similar tasks is too much; therefore, I do not have enough time for LOA activities.” (Teacher 2)

“I think class size, students’ attitudes and teacher workload are the three most crucial factors influencing assessment.” (Teacher 4)

There was only one teacher who mentioned teacher competence as a factor affecting successful LOA employment This is also the code that emerged from the semi-structured in-depth interview Teacher 2 said, “Teachers, especially novice teachers, may find it hard to apply LOA strategies because of our limited ability”

She meant that novice teachers still struggle to improve teaching skills, manage students and other stuff, therefore, those LOA tasks also pose several challenges

Learner-related factors consist of two main categories which are clarified in detail below

The first subcategory of learner constraints, as reported by the informants, was coded as students’ attitudes The interviewees argued that students tend to express more positive attitudes to LOA tasks compared to traditional assessment However, in some circumstances, learners felt reluctant to join any assessment activities, whether interactive tasks or paper tests, mostly due to their low levels of English proficiency Moreover, the heavily test-oriented culture in Vietnam is deeply entrenched in students’ consciousness As a result, they are more afraid of getting low test scores, which hampers teachers’ employment of LOA strategies This theme is exemplified in the excerpts below

“My students really love doing projects; they feel comfortable because they do not have to cram vocabulary or grammar for exams.” (Teacher 2)

“Actually, our students do not want to learn English, so they do not show enthusiasm in any activities.” (Teacher 1)

“Students are scared of mid-term or end-of-term tests when they have to sit in different rooms doing paper tests under the observation of invigilators On the other hand, they do not feel stressed in formative assessment tasks.” (Teacher 3)

Students’ low level of English proficiency was believed to be one challenge that hinders the employment of LOA strategies in the Vietnamese context, as reported by all five teachers interviewed Therefore, teachers were unlikely to apply certain strategies of LOA like self-assessment or peer-assessment According to the teachers, it was not possible for their students to provide proper feedback on their own or their friends’ performances, though assessment criteria were clarified clearly Another issue teachers encounter is mixed-level classes or a big gap among students’ levels in one class For example, some students obtain the learning outcomes issued by the Ministry of Education and Training when they are in grade 7 while many others cannot achieve the goals of grade 7 even when they are in grade 9, as stated by Teacher 3

“My students are not very good at English, which is a challenge for me to employ these strategies in my classes.” (Teacher 1)

“A big gap between the levels of students in one class is a pretty complicated problem.” (Teacher 1)

“Actually, the English level of my students is relatively low … it is almost impossible to apply self-assessment and peer-assessment in these classes.” (Teacher 4) 4.3.4 Parents-related factors

One code that emerged from a teacher during the interview is the attitudes of parents As reported by teacher 2, many parents considered high test scores a testimony to learning development That is the reason why they expect their children to complete exercises in English vocabulary and grammar in lieu of different projects They also prefer traditional teaching methods, where teachers deliver the knowledge while learners listen attentively and take notes This notion is also a contributing factor to teachers’ reluctance to innovate their assessment methods

To summarize, there were ten codes drawn out after a thorough analysis of qualitative data from semi-structured interviews They are “restricted instruction time”, “test-oriented culture”, “big class size”, “insufficient training”, “teacher

59 competence”, “time matter”, “heavy workload”, “students’ attitudes”, students’ levels” and “parents’ attitudes” They are classified into four main categories, namely institute-, teachers-, students-, and parents-related factors According to the interview informants, students’ levels and big class size are the most influencing factors in LOA practices They also perceived students’ attitudes as a crucial element determining the success of LOA in their classrooms On the other hand, teacher competence and parents’ attitudes were the least mentioned during the interviews.

Discussion on major findings of the research

The following discussion attempts to explain the findings of the research and compare them with relevant studies conducted about the beliefs and practices of LOA in classrooms

4.4.1 Answer to research question 1: Teachers’ beliefs on LOA

Findings from the questionnaire suggest that the majority of teachers reached a consensus on the need for and utmost importance of the LOA strategies proposed to promote student learning They are “assessment tasks as learning tasks”,

“scaffolding for formative assessment activities”, “self-assessment and peer assessment”, teacher questioning” and “feedback as feedforward” They are in line with a large body of research implemented in the field such as Ali (2013) and Fazel and Ali (2022) As the teachers shared in the interviews, LOA is an integrative assessment method that not only promotes learning outcomes but also provides students with opportunities to reflect on themselves This is consistent with Bell and Kozlowski (2008) and Blasco-Arcas et al (2013), who stated that learning-oriented assessment leads to an improvement in active learning In addition to looking back at their own performances, they can learn a lot from peers However, several interviewees believed that their students were not competent and fair enough to leave appropriate and objective comments when doing assessments A participant considered LOA meaningful for both teachers and students as it reflects learning She believed that LOA is crucial not only for learners but also for those who seek reflective teaching This is in agreement with a study by Carless, Joughin and Liu

(2006), which claimed that learning-oriented assessment attempts to emphasize learning elements more than measurement ones

4.4.2 Answer to research question 2: Teachers’ practices of LOA

Despite being aware of the profound significance of LOA in promoting learning, teachers’ practices in relation to the five strategies varied according to the distinctive features of each strategy The first strategy, assessment tasks as learning tasks, seemed to be less common in comparison with others This finding shared some similarities with the results of Fazil and Ali (2022), which demonstrated a low level of practices of this strategy among Canadian and Malaysian teachers There are a host of reasons behind this tendency, according to the results of semi-structured interviews First, it is a time-consuming process to design or adapt those assessment tasks Teachers shared that it tends to take them a large amount of time to design the tasks or adapt them from the textbooks, prepare the materials and instruct students Only one interview informant with 19 years of teaching experience admitted not encountering time matters She claimed that she did not have to spend much time preparing or instructing her students because she had done it for a long time Second, restricted instruction time is a hurdle to organizing those activities in classrooms For example, in public schools in Vietnam, there are three lessons per week, each lasting

45 minutes, which is not enough for interactive tasks to be held Lastly, teachers did not usually provide those activities due to Vietnam’s heavily test-oriented culture Students aim to pass mid-term exams, final exams or national entrance exams, typically are paper tests Therefore, teachers tend to design the tasks to help them achieve their goals

Regarding the second strategy of LOA (scaffolding for formative assessment tasks), teachers showed frequent practices This is of utmost importance to bring the task within the learner’s capacity to engage with it (Jones, Saville & Salamoura,

2016), especially to those at a low level of English The interview informants shared that most of their students are not competent to use English in a confident and fluent manner Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to adapt the tasks in the textbooks as

61 well as provide enough instructions and demonstrations before students can perform the activities on their own

For the third strategy of LOA, self-assessment and peer-assessment, teachers reported mixed responses towards different practices A large number of participants occasionally or scarcely implemented these two forms of alternative assessment in their classes There were those who never required their students to give feedback on their own or others’ performances According to Carless (2007), self-assessment and peer-assessment should be employed because they are the cornerstone of student involvement in assessment, one of the core principles of LOA Results from a study by Taylor (2009) indicated little time devoted by language teachers to assessment theory and practice Therefore, they are suggested to get learners engaged with quality assessment criteria and in self and peer assessment tasks for development in their evaluative capacities (Carless, 2015) For the lease practices of self and peer assessment, it was evident that learners were not frequently involved in creating assessment rubrics Results from the in-depth interviews indicated two main reasons

To begin with, students were not qualified to assess a performance of their own or their classmates According to those interviewed, most students have a low level of English proficiency, leading to the fact that they were not able to recognize correct or incorrect aspects As a result, it was almost impossible for them to make proper assessments of the performances Another cause lies in students’ indifferent attitude Though teachers strive to promote learner autonomy through these forms of alternative assessment, the learners seemed to show disinterest in the procedure of completing assessment criteria

The fourth strategy proposed in this study is teacher questioning The practices proposed were usually employed by a large number of people to ensure that no student was excluded However, large class size is the biggest obstacle to applying this strategy in the Vietnamese context, as reported by the interviewees It is unlikely for them to make questions and collect responses from all students in a class of up to

50 people Teacher questioning is mostly mentioned in studies related to speaking

62 tests; therefore, there is little evidence that can be found for their practices in formative assessment tasks

The final strategy, which is feedback as feedforward, was employed relatively frequently by the targeted teachers The participants showed a reasonable focus on providing feedback for their learners and highlighting both positive sides and aspects that need improving of a performance On the contrary, they were less inclined to put forward suggestions for learning development as well as give them time and space for self-reflection This finding concurs with Fazel and Ali (2022), who demonstrated infrequent practice of putting students in feedback loops (feedback and feedforward), which is considered the heart of LOA, according to Turner and Purpura (2016)

To conclude, several discrepancies were witnessed between the teachers’ beliefs and practices of LOA in classrooms First, there was a relatively big gap between how the teachers believed in and practiced the “assessment tasks as learning tasks” strategy This is in line with Fazel and Ali (2022), indicating that 95% of the respondents agreed on the significance of LOA tasks, but “assessment tasks as learning tasks” were inadequately used by teachers Second, a majority of teachers recognized that scaffolding is essential to promote learning, and they practiced scaffolding on a frequent basis They share that this strategy is necessary for their students due to their low level of English proficiency Third, infrequent practice of

“self-assessment and peer-assessment” was seen despite the teachers’ strong belief in these assessment forms This finding is congruent with research conducted by Thuy and Nga (2018) which showed that self-assessment was not frequently used by EFL high school teachers due to their insufficient knowledge, limited time and overloaded work Giang (2017) also found that both self-assessment and peer assessment were less employed in writing classes because of time and work pressure, large class sizes, and objectivity in marking Fourth, in terms of “teacher questioning”, there is an agreement between the teachers’ beliefs and practices A large number of teachers frequently applied this strategy Last but not least, similar to the study of Fazel and Ali (2022), the participants reported a positive attitude and frequent employment of

63 feedback to facilitate learners Rogers, Cheng, and Hu (2007) also found that the instructors believed and often provided feedback for students to improve learning

4.4.3 Answer to research question 3: Factors affecting teachers’ practices of LOA

The teachers in this research showed significant consensus on challenges they encounter when implementing LOA in their teaching contexts The most popular constraints found in this study were students’ levels, big class size, students’ attitudes and time matter This finding echoes Derakhshan and Ghiasvand (2022), who reported time budget and large classes as the main obstacles facing Iranian EFL teachers when implementing LOA in their classes The problem of classroom size was also supported by a study by Iqbal and Khan (2012) on how teachers’ work can be affected by overcrowded classrooms It indicated that teachers were unlikely to teach in such crowded environments effectively and would encounter issues related to instructions, discipline, evaluation and physical health

In terms of students’ reluctance to participate in the assessment tasks, Choi

(2015) pointed out several reasons such as their discipline, face-saving culture and the influence of Korean classroom mannerisms In another study by Dawit and Deneke in 2015, factors interfering with EFL students’ limited participation in classrooms were teaching methods, teachers, learners and physical environment A reason that affects the attitudes of students toward LOA assessment tasks is the test- oriented culture in Vietnam, according to the interview informants Though massive changes have been made to reform the assessment system, reliance on summative tests is still common in Vietnam (Tuyet, 2014; Nhung, 2017) and those tests are used to generate marks for ranking students and prepare for standardized examinations (Nhan, 2015) Therefore, students tend to focus more on grammar and vocabulary exercises that help them achieve high scores in the exams, thus showing disinterest in other formative assessment tasks in class

Regarding students’ level, there are hardly any studies in the field that point out this as a factor affecting teachers’ practices of LOA The teachers in this study believed that their students were not competent enough to assess their own learning

Chapter summary

In brief, the chapter has revealed major findings collected via two research instruments, which are questionnaire and semi-structured interviews A discussion of the results was also provided when the researcher explained and interpreted the data The participants firmly held a belief in the profound significance of LOA in promoting learning; however, they showed mixed responses in terms of LOA practices The constraints hindering their practices are related to the institute, teachers, students and parents The summary of the findings is going to be presented in the following chapter

CONCLUSION

Conclusion

To sum up, the study was conducted in order to investigate the beliefs and practices of LOA of secondary teachers of English in Vietnam as well as factors influencing their practices of this assessment approach in classrooms The study reached three major findings after thoroughly collecting and analyzing data from the questionnaire and semi-structured in-depth interviews To begin with, the majority of participants reached a consensus on the need for and significance of the LOA strategies proposed to promote student learning On the other hand, numerous teachers surveyed could not perform these LOA activities on a frequent basis The factors affecting their practices include problems related to the institute, teachers, students and parents as well

In addition to the challenges mentioned in the previous studies, teachers’ limited competence and attitudes of parents towards assessment were other issues that hindered the employment of LOA in different teaching contexts

In general, the teachers hold a strong belief in alternative forms of assessment, but cannot apply them all in their classes To take it as an example, Guo and Xu claimed that ESL teachers did not take learning objectives into careful consideration and could not frequently employ self-assessment, peer-assessment and interactive assessment (2020) Nhung (2017) found that summative tests were predominant, but test results often lacked accompanying teacher feedback or were not used to provide further guidance Beyond the dominance of tests in evaluating student proficiency and administrative reporting, Anh (2017) also identified a significant lack of self- and peer-assessment and group-based assessment In addition, there was little effort to provide students with feedback, link test scores to learning outcomes, or make use of test results for development in teaching and learning The discrepancies between

66 teachers’ beliefs and practices can be attributed to sociocultural factors (e.g., students and policy), teachers’ assessment literacy and workload (Narathakoon et al., 2020), and experience (Vattoy, 2020).

Pedagogical implications of the findings

According to the findings above, instructional implications should be drawn out for more effective employment of LOA in EFL classrooms First and foremost, the findings reveal that an education system focusing on summative tests hinders teachers’ employment of LOA in classrooms In fact, there have been massive changes over the last few years in testing and assessment in Vietnam so that students can better develop English competencies On the other hand, there are limited attempts to enforce the promulgated regulations (Minh, 2024) Therefore, providing more support and supervision in implementing the regulations in specific regions and schools is necessary, which can result in increased use of formative and alternative assessment

In addition, in order for LOA to be successfully applied in reality, the objectives of the courses must be redefined To be specific, the courses should emphasize promoting students’ learning instead of achievement In other words, what students can learn should weigh more than the scores they can obtain

Another issue that teachers encounter is insufficient training on learning- oriented assessment Training programs should, thus, be provided directly for practitioners so that they are fully equipped with the principles and strategies of this assessment approach, which then guarantees effective application of LOA in a certain teaching context

Last but not least, teachers are suggested to put the theory into practice with serious reflection In detail, after receiving practical training sessions, teachers should apply the strategies in their classes step by step Reflective teaching is a must for development Based on students’ responses and personal reflection, adaptations should be made for more effective assessment Teachers can also practice the strategies gradually instead of putting them all in practice at once because it will be a huge challenge for them to handle too much new stuff at once

Limitations and suggestions for further study

It is acknowledged that this research has its limitations To begin with, the study aims to determine teachers’ beliefs and practices in five different LOA strategies The researcher expects to have future research implemented on a specific strategy such as LOA task design, feedback, or self-assessment in Vietnam This will delve deeper into the current situation as well as detail teachers’ and students’ constraints, thus proposing practical suggestions Another limitation of the study lies in the exclusive reliance on two research instruments, which are the questionnaire and interviews Future research should include other qualitative instruments for collecting data, like observations and narratives, to provide a more comprehensive picture of LOA implementation in classrooms Lastly, this research investigated teachers from both public schools and private schools that have certain contextual differences In Vietnam, these two kinds of educational institutions can be organized differently in terms of class size, instructional time and even teaching approaches Therefore, other studies are suggested to determine whether LOA is employed similarly or differently and the challenges facing teachers in these contexts Teachers’ educational levels and teaching experiences are also potential factors that researchers can consider In addition to teachers, future research should investigate students’ perspectives on assessment in general and their attitudes toward LOA As a result, appropriate changes can be made to promote students’ learning In short, future research can build upon these findings and address the limitations to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the application of learning-oriented assessment in Vietnam.

Chapter summary

Overall, several conclusions based on the research findings have been summarized in this chapter They are followed by instructional implications for more effective employment of learning-oriented assessment in classrooms, limitations of the study and recommendations for research in the future

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Secondary English teachers’ beliefs and practices in applying Learning-oriented assessment

I am Thao, a Master’s student in English Teaching Methodology at Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies I am conducting this survey for my graduation thesis with the topic “Secondary English teachers’ beliefs and practices in applying Learning-oriented assessment” It aims to investigate how secondary teachers of English in Vietnam believe in learning-oriented assessment (LOA) and apply it in their teaching contexts It only takes you about 10 minutes to complete this questionnaire and all information you provide is kept confidential and solely used for research purposes Thank you so much for your support!

To what extent do you agree with the following statements? Tick a box

1 - Strongly disagree, 2 - Disagree, 3 - Neither agree or disagree, 4 - Agree, 5 - Strongly agree

ASSESSMENT TASKS AS LEARNING TASKS 1 2 3 4 5

1) Assessment tasks should be aligned with students’ desired learning outcomes

(e.g., One learning outcome is students can order at a restaurant, so the assignment task should be designed to assess students’ language use in this situation)

2) Teachers should provide real-world assessment tasks (e.g., role-play in real- world situations and presentations)

3) Teachers should provide interactive assessment activities (e.g., students collaborate to complete a shared mission or they participate in competing games)

4) Meaning-focused assessment tasks are better at promoting learning than form-focused ones

SCAFFOLDING FOR FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES 1 2 3 4 5

5) Teachers should offer assessment tasks that are challenging enough without demotivating students

6) Teachers should provide students support and guidance to complete the tasks before allowing them more freedom

7) Teachers should provide enough demonstrations before asking students to complete the formative assessment tasks

8) Teachers should assess students’ prior knowledge before teaching a new concept (e.g., ask them to share personal experiences related to the lesson)

9) In designing formative assessment tasks, teachers should include the language in a sensory context using pictures, videos, or other types of realia so that students find it accessible and engaging

10) Teachers should design formative assessment tasks that can develop students’ metacognition - the ability to think and be aware of the process of thinking and doing things (e.g., students self-assess their performance, practice predicting, summarizing or making questions to tackle a complex text)

SELF-ASSESSMENT AND PEER-ASSESSMENT 1 2 3 4 5

11) Teachers should ask students to assess their own performance (e.g., their writing or speaking)

12) Teachers should ask students to assess their classmates’ performance on language tasks to give feedback (e.g., students give comments on others’ piece of writing)

13) Teachers should inform students of the purposes of self and peer assessments

14) Teachers should involve students in creating assessment rubrics or criteria

15) Teachers should give clear instructions and model responses so that students know what they need to do

16) Teachers should explain rubrics/criteria to students

17) Teachers should encourage students to give objective comments on their own and peers’ performances

18) Teachers should guide students' reflection on improving their learning based on assessment information

19) Teachers should modify the language so that the question’s level of difficulty is appropriate for students’ level of proficiency

20) Teachers should make open-ended and thought-provoking questions (e.g.,

How, Why, or What if)

21) Teachers should allow students to think or discuss before requesting them to produce a response