Academic major as a variable in EFL instructors’ speaking assessment preferences in preparatory programs

Year 2025, Volume: 11 Issue: 1, 32 - 55, 30.06.2025

Berk İlhan

Abstract

Five departments in Turkiye train English language teachers and EFL instructors at universities. The variation in educational background might affect their assessment practices. This descriptive study investigates whether such differences exist by examining the speaking assessment preferences of 82 EFL instructors working in university preparatory programs. Data were collected via an electronic questionnaire featuring statements on different CEFR-based assessment types. The Kruskal-Wallis test revealed two statistically significant differences in the participants’ assessment preferences based on their academic majors. Overall, instructors favor speaking assessments that use language in authentic contexts, apply continuous and formative evaluation, remain objective, and utilize external assessment over self-assessment. They believe such methods foster more reliable and comprehensive measures of language ability. Statistically significant differences were found in criterion-referencing and guided judgment, suggesting a heightened focus on these types in pre-service and in-service teacher education programs to equip instructors with diversified assessment strategies.

Keywords

Academic major , descriptive study , EFL , speaking assessment , assessment preferences

Ethical Statement

The study is a part of master thesis completed in 2017 under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Dr. İsmail Doğan ÜNAL “A study on oral assessment practices in English classes applied by language instructors” with ID “458815.

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