learning-oriented assessment seeks to emphasise that a fundamental purpose of assessment should be to promote learning. it mirrors formative assessment and assessment for learning processes. it can be defined as actions undertaken by teachers and / or students, which provide feedback for the improvement of teaching and learning. it also contrasts with equally important measurement-focused approaches to assessment, but tries to emphasise the learning rather than the measurement. a key element in learning-oriented assessment is feedback, where students are now, where they are trying to go, and how they can get there. therefore this study was conducted to investigate the effect of learner- oriented task- based assessment on the reading comprehension of iranian efl learners. to this end, 70 english major students studying at payam- e- noor university of behshahr were participated in the study. they were randomly assigned into two equal groups of control and experimental. during the course of the study, the control group was taught in the traditional way of teaching reading comprehension and the experimental group was given two sessions of teaching which was in traditional way and then one session of task- based assessment. at the end of each session, the teacher gave them individual and group feedback. these two sessions of teaching, one task- based assessment, and feedback were repeated 4 times (total 12 sessions). to find out whether there was any significant difference in reading comprehension of two groups, a pretest prior to the treatment and a posttest after that were used. also the results of the pretest and posttest were compared to investigate the difference rate between two groups. results of the data analysis indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group, showing the positive effect of learner- oriented task- based assessment. and then the questionnaire of attitude toward test was administered again to see if there were any changes in the view of experimental group toward tests and test situations or not. later, a questionnaire about students’ attitude toward feedback and rubrics was employed to know their views toward the feedback they took and also their ideas and attitudes about that specific kind of assessment. the results show the positive attitude of students toward the learner- oriented task- based assessment and also toward the feedback they got and the rubrics used.