Preferred linguistic evaluative methods for students of high schools and how it conforms with the methods used by their teachers

Abstract

The current study aims to identify the methods of linguistic evaluation preferred by high-school students as well as the ways used by Arabic language teachers to evaluate students’ learning to unravel whether students’ preferences and teachers’ methods are in harmony.

To achieve this goal, a questionnaire was prepared based on scientific bases including fourteen evaluation methods. The questionnaire was applied on a random sample consisting of 310 students, second and third levels of high school, plus 81 Arabic language teachers who teach those levels.

The study results showed that students highly prefer objective tests method while they less prefer methods such as: rehearsal of texts and grammar, peer assessment, oral tests, linguistic errors analysis, homework, lessons presentations and preparing researches and reports. They moderately like the other methods. Moreover, the results showed that Arabic language teachers always use the peer discussion method and often use subjective tests, rehearsal of grammar and compositions, short performance tasks. On the other hand, they rarely use self-assessment, peer assessment, progress portfolio, lessons presentation and preparing researches and reports.

The results also showed no statistically significant differences between appraisal methods preferred by students and appraisal methods used by teachers which means that there is statistical overlap between student preferences and teachers uses in terms of linguistic appraisal methods.