Students’ Perceptions of English Classroom Assessment During Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This research was aimed at investigating the student perceptions of English classroom assessment at an Islamic Senior High School during Covid-19 pandemic. The researcher investigated learners’ perception in terms of congruence of the English classroom assessment with planned learning, authenticity, transparency, student consultation, and diversity. The research involved 314 students out of an entire student population of 578 students from 20 different classes across three academic years. The instrument used was 30 five-point Likert scale items from Students’ Perceptions of Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ) developed by Waldrip, Fisher, & Dorman (2008) with Cronbach alpha internal consistency ranging from .68 to .86. After the data were collected and analyzed for reliability and validity using SPSS20, it was found that the internal consistency/reliability using Cronbach alpha was.94 and discriminant validity was.75. The internal consistency score was high, which means that the average inter-item correlation was high. The discriminant validity was also high, which implies that the instrument was valid. The data were then analyzed descriptively and reported in mean and standard deviation format. It was found that the highest mean belonged to diversity scale and the lowest belonged to student consultation. It means that although the mean of each scale was high, it is expected that the students is consulted and authenticity is improved in this school. This research informs the stakeholders such as teachers and educational administrators that student perceptions of English classroom assessment were high. However, some improvements need to be focused on the area of student consultation and authenticity. Since the finding shows that student consultation and authenticity scales had the lowest grand mean, it is expected that the students need to be consulted in relation to types of assessment, scoring method, use of assessment, and especially rules of assessment. In addition, it is expected that the authenticity should be improved so the students learn everyday English and they can implement what they learn at school at their daily activities.