The Impact of Alternative Assessment Knowledge, Teaching Experience, Gender, and Academic Degree on EAP Teachers’ Assessment Literacy

This study investigated the impact of Iranian EAP teachers’ familiarity with or knowledge of alternative assessment (AA), teaching experience, academic degree and gender on their assessment literacy. To this end, 106 EAP teachers (74 males and 32 females) holding PhD degree (N=77) or MA/MSc degree (N=29) in different fields of study selected based on convenience sampling, participated in the study. The participants completed Classroom Assessment Literacy Inventory (CALI) developed by Mertler and Campbell (2005). The results of descriptive statistics indicated that observation, as one form of AA, was used most frequently by EAP teachers. The results of Independent Samples t-test showed that EAP teachers’ knowledge of AA significantly differentiated them in terms of assessment literacy. The results of Independent Samples t-test further showed that there was no significant difference between male and female EAP teachers regarding their assessment literacy, while EAP teachers who held Ph.D. degree possessed significantly higher levels of assessment literacy compared to their MA/MSc-holding counterparts. Moreover, the results of one-way ANOVA indicated that EAP teachers’ years of teaching experience had no significant effect on their assessment literacy. The interview results also indicated that half of the participants were either unfamiliar (33%), or had low familiarity (17%) with AA. It was also revealed that lack of knowledge of AA and overcrowded classes were two main reasons for the EAP teachers’ lack of use of AA. Furthermore, the majority of the participants who did not use AA, reported they mainly used summative assessment instead.