Supported Language Learning through Assessment Strategies: Washback Effects of Multiple Choice, Cloze, And Meta Linguistic Tests on EFL Students writing

The present study intends to look into washback effects of tests on students who are learning and using some specialgrammatical (i.e. present perfect and present perfect continuous) points in writing tasks. The subjects of the currentresearch were 120 upper-intermediate students, both male and female, studying English as their second language thatwere divided into four groups of 30 students. To pursue this goal, tests in three different formats had been providedincluding: context embedded (cloze test), context reduced (multiple choice items), and Meta linguistic tests. Afterwards,the study was carried out in three phases: first, grammatical points were taught to four different groups of students.Then, three groups received treatments by taking a test after the teaching phase, but the control group only received anextend time of teaching. At last, all groups took a focused writing task in which the target grammar forms are needed tobe used. The results of this study suggested that there is a positive and significant washback effect on students’ writingperformance as a result of assisting teaching through different testing techniques. As post hoc test illustrated, metalinguisticsitems loaded the highest effect on students’ writing performance followed by cloze and multiple choice tests.Furthermore, there was not any significant effect for multiple choice items compared to the control group. A number ofimplications are conceivable for the results of the current study.

Keywords:

Washback Effects , Multiple Choice , Cloze , Meta Linguistic , test