The Impact of Diagnostic Formative Assessment on Listening Comprehension Ability and Self-Regulation

Assessment plays a crucial role in any educational milieu (OECD, 2003). The researchers sought to investigate the possible impact of diagnostic formative assessment on student's listening comprehension ability and self-regulation. To this end, 46 participants were selected from among 78 students. A listening test was given to the participants to measure their level of listening comprehension ability. After 14 sessions (7 weeks) of instructing listening materials and experiencing formative assessment principles, the same listening test was administered as the posttest. Gathered data were analyzed and the results revealed that students in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group regarding their performances in listening test. Moreover, the results proved that student's self-regulation increased while they practiced diagnostic formative assessment based on the results obtained from pretest and post test. The results of the present study may be useful for those teachers who practice language for the sake of communication and forming student's knowledge by diagnosing their weak and strong points.