The Impact Of Undergraduate Program Assessment Methods On Bs English Students In Pakistan

Abstract

This article reports the impact of the university's undergraduate assessment system on learning and teaching. Undergraduate programmes in Pakistan heavily rely on teacher assessment of students' learning outcomes during a semester. However, teachers’ formative assessment practises appear to be in contrast with what formative assessment literature suggests. The purpose of this research was to study how university undergraduate assessment methods affected learners in a public sector university and how teachers used assessment as a teaching tool. Data were collected from the university English-major learners of four semesters—1s, 3rd, 5th and 7th. The data was subjected to both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The findings showed that the assessment system
had a partially positive washback on students’ learning because it discouraged rote learning of materials to some extent, helped students practise their IT skills, and developed their self-assessment skills. However, the teachers did not align curricular tasks with the assessment practices, and most teachers did not give formative feedback to students. Therefore, it is strongly suggested that teachers’ assessment literacy be developed.