Introduction
Traditionally, assessment is defined as an
information-gathering activity. We assess in
order to gain insights into learners’ level of
knowledge or ability and the information
gained through assessment procedures
would be welcomed, and viewed as an
integral component of good teaching.
However, a number of questions are in
order: Is this uni-dimensional view of
assessment deemed sufficient for tapping
precise information regarding the student’s
language ability? Or do we need to apply
some alternative procedures in order to
provide multiple sources of information for
showing a complete picture of students’
progress and ability? This latter question
was also the concern of researchers such as
Gipps (1994) and McNamara and Deane
(1995). Although Such questions have
roughly been investigated, it is hoped to
shed further light on them in this study.
More specifically, this study was to probe
into the effect of curriculum-based
measurement (henceforth CBM) on Iranian
EFL learners’ development of L2 grammar
and reading.
Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM), as
an objective system of ongoing
measurement, is used by classroom teachers
to fulfill two purposes, i.e., to assess the
students’ outcome behaviors and to increase
educational decision-making. It is objective
because it uses explicit rules and procedures,
and it is ongoing because it frequently
occurs after a while in the classroom.
Curriculum-based measurement procedures
were developed to index the effects of
instruction on student performance within
the curriculum (Christ, 2006). CBM was
primarily developed for the purpose of
monitoring students’ performance in
curriculum (Deon, Fuchs, Marston, & Shin,
2001; Fuchs & Fuchs, 1993). This formative
function of curriculum-based assessment is
thus under-explored especially in the EFL
context, and the present study is an attempt
in this direction.
Theoretical background
Formative assessment in L2
The last decade has witnessed a significant
shift in thinking about the role of assessment
in language learning programs (Brindley,
2007). At the forefront of this change has
been the increased experimentation with
learner-centered ‘alternative’ assessment
methods. From among different possible
alternatives has emerged formative
assessment, which, as its central premise,
sees the goal of assessment as an index to
learning processes (Leung, 2004; Hagstorm,
2006; Ke, 2006). In many second and
foreign language instruction contexts,
assessment practices have increasingly
moved away from objective mastery testing
of instructional syllabus content to on-going
assessment of the effort and contribution
learners make to the process of
learning(Ross, 2005). Teachers should build
in many opportunities to assess how the
students are learning and then use this
information to make beneficial changes in
instruction.
According to Bachman (1990), formative
assessment is intended to provide feedback
for the ongoing teaching by providing
important information regarding learners’
strengths and weaknesses that can then be
used for subsequent instructional decisions.
Teachers are now more aware of the various
roles that they can adopt to aid their pupils’
learning in a more proactive way than in the
past, and so are more focused on pupils’
learning as opposed to their own teaching.
That is, the focus is more on the changes
taking place in pupils’ minds as opposed to
the effectiveness of the teacher’s
performance (Harris, 2007). According to
Murphy (2006), learning processes can be
improved if formative assessment
procedures are applied appropriately.
Formative or “for-learning” perspective is
quite different from the summative and “of-learning” perspective in terms of theoretical
and educational orientation. By definition:
summative assessment is more quantitative
in nature than formative assessment because
it is formally used to assign grades or marks
so as to make judgments regarding students’
achievement at the end of a particular term
or an educational program. But formative
assessment is process-based, and is used for
assessing students’ learning in the classroom
usually for the purpose of keeping records of
their progress overtime (Harlan & James,
1997; Ke, 2006; Harris, 2007).
Formative Assessment has a considerable
body of research validating its effectiveness.
As recent contributions to the literature on
second language assessment would suggest,
conventional summative testing of language
learning outcomes is gradually integrating
formative modes of assessing language
learning as an on-going process.
However, in spite of all the research that has
been done on this issue, there is a need to
expand empirically -and theoretically-
informed approaches to the investigation of
how formative assessment is accomplished
in the classroom (Leung & Mohan, 2004).
Besides, of key interest is whether formative
assessment manifests itself in observable
changes in how learner achievement evolves
over time and how putative changes in
achievement spawned by innovations in
assessment practices influence changes in
language proficiency. Therefore, empirical
research is required on the impact of
formative assessment on actual learning
success (Ross, 2005). It is now time to turn
our attention to one of these formative
classroom systems, i.e., curriculum-based
measurement, which is under scrutiny in this
study.
Curriculum-Based Measurement
There are several types of formative
assessment measures, including authentic
assessment, portfolio assessment, and
performance-based assessment. One type of
formative assessment is Curriculum-Based
Measurement (CBM). Popham (1993) refers
to it as “measurement-driven instruction”.
This is also called “curricular-driven
assessment” (Poehner, 2007), which is
described as playing a mediation role
between instruction and assessment.
CBM, for the first time, was developed by
Deno (1985), who defined it as a frequent
measurement of students’ curriculum so as
to examine the effect of instructional
program on the effectiveness of teaching
methods and the improvement of learners’
success. CBM is a reliable and valid system
of measuring students’ over time in the
classroom. This way, teachers can use the
obtained information from the ongoing
assessment to monitor learners’ progress in
due course and resolve “when and how”
they can fine-tune instructional objectives to
enhance teaching effectiveness (Fuchs &
Fuchs, 1993).
Poehner (2007) believes that in this
approach assessment procedures are not
developed a priori and then imposed upon
institutions and classroom teachers but
instead emerge from a grounded analysis of
instructional interactions and pedagogical
practices as observed in the classroom. This
approach enables classroom teachers to
assume a more active role in determining
assessment practices. An added advantage of
curricular-driven assessment is that it lends
itself well to evaluations of program
effectiveness. In other words, because the
assessment is derived from curricular
objectives, students’ performances can be
taken as indicators of how well those
objectives are being met (Poehner, 2007).
As observed in the literature, The critical
feature of CBM is its documented “technical
adequacy” (Deno, 1985). This way
technically sound measures are significant
parts of any assessment system utilized for
decision making function regarding
students’ test or class performance. The use
of CBM procedures for assessing ongoing
student progress and for making
instructional decisions has been investigated
for validation (Stecker, Fuchs, & Fuchs,
2005). Using collective information from
multiple assessment procedures results in
the reduction of measurement error and
permits the teacher to make judgments about
whether the student shows that he is on the
right track toward achieving the long-term
goal and to make decisions correctly
regarding the effectiveness of any
instructional programs (Stecker et al. 2005).
With the help of such indicators of
performance, teachers can measure the
relevant standing point of an individual at a
particular time or can indicate the student’s
progress over time (Deno, 1985).
Three features distinguish CBM from most
forms of classroom assessment (Fuchs &
Deno, 1991 cited in Stecker et al., 2005).
They are:
First, CBM is standardized. So the
behaviors to be measured and the
procedures for measuring those
behaviors are specified.
Second, the CBM testing methods
and the difficulty of the tests remain
constant, with equivalent weekly
assessments spanning a full school
year.
Third, each week’s test content
reflects the performance desired at
the end of the year, and therefore
samples the many dimensions of the
year’s curriculum.
Although there is a robust research literature
on CBM in psychology and general
education (Stecker et al., 2005), the
approach is relatively unknown in applied
linguistics. Indeed, with very few
exceptions, L2 performance has not been
examined from this perspective. “Beginning
in the mid-1970s through the early 1990s,
research on CBM focused on students with
disabilities. It examined whether use of
CBM-aided instructional decisions produced
differential achievement among students”
(Stecker et al., 2005; p. 799). Many studies
(such as Stecker & Fuchs, 2000; Fewster &
Mcmillan, 2000; Fuchs, Fuchs, & Compton,
2004; Maxwell & Delaney, 2004) reported
the efficacy of CBM in improving the
achievement of students with learning
disabilities in academic skills.
Studies such as Fuchs and Fuchs (1993) and
Stecker and Fuch (2000) investigated the
effect of using CBM on reading, writing and
spelling achievement of the students in
primary schools. Results indicated that
teachers were able to implement CBM with
relatively large numbers of students with
fidelity and that their overall satisfaction
with CBM procedures was high and CBM
could significantly improve early literacy
skill achievement of primary students.
An alternative approach to traditional tests is
the collection of ongoing data through
multiple, brief assessments that allow for
consideration of the student's response
instructional approach based on both level of
performance and growth over time (Francis,
2005). Curriculum-based measurement
(CBM) has demonstrated to be a potential
method for assessing both level and growth
of student performance in skill achievement.
The study done by De Ramirez and Shapiro
(2006) was among the first studies that used
CBM in L2 language context. Using CBM
procedures they examined the performances
of eighty-three Learners. The investigation
was guided by the following questions: Did
students in the English general education
curriculum have significantly higher levels
of reading English than did Spanish-speaking ELLs in the bilingual education
curriculum? The findings obtained from
their experimental study revealed that
Spanish-speaking learners of English read
English passages more fluently than general
education students. Moreover, results
regarding the comparison of general
education students reading in English and
Spanish-speaking ELLs reading in Spanish
showed that general education students
outperformed Spanish-speaking ELLs in
term of fluency. From their findings it can
be concluded that CBM proved to be
workable concerning reading fluency in EFL
contexts.
As it has been said, despite the extensive
body of research literature on CBM in
general education and psychology, it is
relatively unknown in applied linguistics.
Therefore, this study was an initial attempt
to represent an in-depth treatment of CBM
and applications of its principles to L2
context. In other words, the study attempted
to examine the instructional role of CBM
both as a technique which helps EFL
students learn better and as a predictor of
their end-of-the term performances.
The present study
The major purpose of this study was to
investigate how the results of a CBM
procedure used during the educational
semester would predict the performance of
students at end-of -the-semester summative
evaluation. It was further an attempt to
investigate the effect of a CBM procedure
on the grammar and reading achievement of
Iranian high school learners, illustrating how
this type of assessment could be
accomplished in the classroom context. To
this end, this study was conducted to
demonstrate the formative value of CBM in
assisting students to foster their English
grammar and reading ability.
Considering the aforementioned problems
and purposes, the following null hypotheses
were set forth to be investigated in this
study:
1) There is no significant difference
between reading achievement of students
who receive CBM with those who do not
receive any especial kinds of
measurement during the course.
2) There is no significant difference
between English grammar achievement
of students who receive CBM with those
who do not receive any especial kinds of
measurement during the course
3) There is no relationship between the
results obtained based on CBM
regarding reading during a semester and
the student’s end-of-the-semester
performances.
4) There is no relationship between the
results obtained based on CBM
regarding grammar during a semester
and the student’s end-of-the-semester
performances.
Method
Participants
Two classes, each containing 30 female
students, were selected from among the
three existing 1st
grade classes of a high
school in a rural area. Regarding educational
background, they were nearly the same.
Indeed, due to the difficulty of conducting
research in a classroom context in our high
schools, it was difficult to randomly select
and divide the participants into groups as it
is in a true experimental design, so an intact-
group design was taken to conduct the study.
All the participants had three years of
experience in English language learning in
grades one, two, and three of secondary
school.
Before starting the treatment, a pretest was
used to assure the equality of the
participants in terms of reading and
grammar proficiency. The results of two
independent-samples t-tests indicated that
there was no significant difference between
the learners’ reading and grammar
performances on pretest and two groups
were equivalent in terms of reading and
grammar achievement before starting the
treatment (Tables 1 and 2; Tables appear
after ‘references’).
Table 1: Independent-Samples t-test of
Reading Pretest
Table 2: Independent-Samples t-test of
Reading Pretest
Instrumentation
As to the purpose of the present study, a
number of instruments were prepared and
used which will be described in order.
The achievement test
An achievement test was used as a pretest in
this study so as to control the initial
differences among the groups in terms of
reading and grammar achievement. This
achievement test was developed by the
researcher. It includes two reading and
grammar subtests, 10 items per each subtest.
The items of the grammar part are
completely related to the English language
structures of grade one book (modals such
as "could"," had to"," must", and "should”,
expletive "It", comparison with "as+
adjective+ as structure" and comparative and
superlative forms of adjectives), which was
taught and assessed through CBM during the
term.
The text of the reading comprehension
subtest is also at the same length of the last
reading text of the grade one book (150
words) as it is considered to be the students’
reading goal in the semester. Reading
comprehension subtest is an equivalent form
of the other reading comprehension tests
administered during the semester.
In order to assure the reliability and validity
of the test, a pilot study was conducted. In
this phase of study, the test was
administered to 20 grade one students in the
same school. The reliability measures
obtained using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient
was .79 for the reading subtest and .84 for
the grammar subtest. Prior to piloting,
attempts were also made to make sure of the
content validity of the test. That is, the test
was sent out for two university professors,
who were competent in English so as to
render their value judgments on its content
and format. The results of their evaluation of
the test confirmed the close correspondence
between the content of the test and the
content of the materials to be tested. So, the
test was deemed appropriate as to its content
validity.
Curriculum-Based measurement (CBM)
tests
This study used CBM as one of the methods
of formative assessment which is
characterized with the features of
standardized testing. CBM uses the typical
paper-and-pencil tests in a formative way to
monitor students’ gradual progress. An
explanation of the tests is provided as
follows:
Reading tests
In this study, twelve teacher-made ten-item
multiple-choice equivalent reading
comprehension tests were used in order to
measure student's reading achievement
during the treatment. These tests were
informal tests designed for the purpose of
implementation of CBM. All passages used
in the reading comprehension tests were
about 150 words long, comprising a
complete story, taken from different sources
and for which equivalence was determined
using the Flesch readability estimate. These
passages were at the same level of difficulty
with the reading text of the achievement test.
The readability indices of all the selected
texts fell between 70-79 which means the
texts were fairly easy. The topic of the
passages was relevant to topics used in the1st
grade book. Each test included 10 items and
students had 10 minutes to complete the test.
Grammar tests
Twelve teacher-made grammar tests were
used in order to measure student’s grammar
improvement during the treatment. All the
tests included 10 multiple-choice items.
Every week, the students’ achievement of
one of the structures of 1
st
grade book that is
targeted in the study was evaluated through
one of the tests. Each test included 10 items
and students had 10 minutes to complete the
test.
Procedure
The procedure employed in this study was
as follows: the first stage was the
administration of pretest (as noted above) to
ensure the equality of participants in terms
of reading and grammar proficiency prior to
the treatment and further to ensure that none
of the selected structures have been
previously known. After the participants
took the pretest, they started the educational
semester, which lasted 12 weeks consisting
of 2 sessions per week, one session 90 and
the other 45 minutes.
Having administered the pretest, the
instructor started to employ CBM with the
experimental group in order to record pupils'
progress in reading and grammar during the
course from the first week. Every week,
students took a test, including two grammar
and reading sub-tests, which lasted 20
minutes. Students' progress was measured
by a quiz including both reading and
grammar subtests every week, at least four
times each month, twelve times a semester.
Every week, the gradual improvement of
each student over time on reading and
grammar was shown on two different
graphs. These two graphs also represent the
overall improvement of the class on reading
and grammar. They are a kind of Linear
Regression Graphs and are comprehensive
indicator of the students’ reading and
grammar achievement (see Figure 1 & 2
below). In these graphs, a steep line shows
that the students’ reading and grammar
achievement is improving and a flat line
identify inadequate students.
In the courses in which the students’
performances are being assessed by the
methods of formative assessment
progressively, it is incumbent upon the
teacher to react to the students’ weaknesses
to compensate for their inadequacy during
the semester (Leung & Mohan, 2004). In
CBM, this can be done by taking different
actions such as changing instruction,
lowering the goals of learning, and
providing interventions. To fulfill such an
objective, this study used weekly sessions of
interventions. It means that every week, the
mean score and the standard deviation of the
class were calculated and the students whose
scores were 1 standard deviation below the
mean were identified as weak students. This
empirical evidence potentially informs
decisions about which students require a
level of intervention that exceeds what is
ordinarily provided within the education.
Weak Students entered a group tutoring as a
kind of intervention.
It should be noted that during the semester,
the control group took just a midterm exam
which was administered in the midweek of
the semester. Formative assessment as done
in the CBM group was not implemented
there. Moreover, the effect of teaching on
the participants’ achievement was controlled
by using the same teacher and the same
teaching method for both control and
experimental groups.
At the end of the term, once again the test
which was used as pretest was administered
as a posttest to find the probable changes in
the reading and grammar achievement of the
individual learners.
Tutoring sessions
Good formative assessment will support
good judgments by teachers about student
progress and levels of attainment and it will
provide feedback that can be used to help
learning. In the present study, tutoring
sessions were held to help the students
improve their weaknesses in the problematic
areas. These 40-minute sessions are based
on the principles of the usual instruction and
they have a clear scope and sequence of
lessons that had followed a weekly test and
provide cumulative review and practice.
Weak students were tutored once a week,
two days after the weekly tests. In order to
further clarify what went on during the
tutoring, a sample session is provided here
in detail. The session was held on the first
week. The grammar point of the test was the
modal “could” as a past tense of “can’ and 4
students were participated in this tutoring
session. This session was recorded and it
was transcribed later by the researcher.
At first, teacher was going to present a
complete and comprehensive explanation of
the form and meaning of the modal ‘could”.
To do so, she wrote these examples on the
board:
My father couldn’t swim last Friday.
Jack couldn’t ride the bicycle three
weeks ago.
Mary couldn’t speak English last year.
But she can speak English now
She spoke with a very low voice, but I
could understand what she said.
-Teacher: look at these sentences.
What does it mean? Which tense
does it refer to?
- [silence]
- Teacher: ok, what do you think
about the second sentence? What
time does it happen?
- Z (student): present
-Teacher: why? How about three
weeks ago? Don’t you think…
-F (student): past, past I think. Ago
refers to the past time.
-Teacher: right. Let’s look at the
third sentence. What is your idea
about the third sentence M (student)?
- [at first, M translated the sentence
into the Persian language] I think
“now” refers to the present time but
last year….
- [F interrupted] past time again.
- Teacher: so, you think “could” is
used for the past tense F, yes?
-F: yes.
-teacher: and what does it mean?
- F: “be able to”
-Teacher: good, exactly. S (student),
would you give us an example of
what you couldn’t do in the past?
-S: [thinking] yes, I couldn’t played
the guitar.
-Teacher: what’s wrong with the
sentence students?
- [silence]
-Teacher: “couldn’t play” or
“couldn’t play”?
F: I think “couldn’t play”?
-Teacher: why?
- [silence]
-Teacher: ok, because, as you know,
we use bare infinitive after Modals,
yes.
- Students: yes.
Then, teacher gave the students some
completion exercises. They were
supposed to complete the sentences
using “could”, “couldn’t”, or “can”.
An example is provided here:
EX: my grandfather was a very
clever man. He …………speak five
languages.
Having done the exercises, the students were
asked to discuss the answers. At the end of
the session, the teacher assigned some
homework exercises for the students.
Weekly analysis of subjects’ performance
In Tables 3 and 4 below, weekly analysis of
the participants’ performance on reading and
grammar exams is shown. In these Tables,
class statistics are provided which
potentially inform decisions about which
students require a level of intervention that
exceeds what is ordinarily provided within
general education. As it is mentioned earlier,
these students should enter a one-session
group tutoring. The mean CBM score for the
class is shown, along with the standard
deviation on that mean and a discrepancy
CBM score (average score minus 1 standard
deviation) for signaling an inadequate
performance level relative to classmates.
Table 3: Weekly analysis of participants’
performances on the reading exams
Table 4: Weekly analysis of participants’
performances on the grammar exams
As it can be seen in the Tables above, the
number of the students who are supposed to
take part in tutoring is decreasing toward the
end of the semester.
The results of CBM tests are also shown on
Linear Regression Graphs. They indicate all
students’ reading and grammar improvement
one by one during the educational semester.
Graphs 1 and 2 below are two examples of
students’ performance on reading and
grammar tests during the educational
semester.
Results
The effect of CBM on students’ achievement
in reading and grammar
The first and the second null hypotheses
were intended to investigate the CBM effect
on the achievement of reading and some
English structures of Iranian high school
students. In order to investigate these two
hypotheses, after the treatment, the posttest
was administered to both groups to compare
the subjects’ performances. Table 5 shows
descriptive statistics of the posttest in both
groups.
Table 5: Descriptive statistics of the
posttest
Two independent- samples t-tests were run
to compare control and experimental
groups’ performances. The results showed
that there is a significant difference between
the performances of the control and
experimental groups on the reading and
grammar posttest (Table 6 and 7).
Considering descriptive statistics and mean
scores, it can be inferred that the
experimental group performed better than
the control group on the posttest. Therefore,
it can be concluded that CBM can
significantly improve the learners’
achievement and the first and the second
null hypotheses were rejected.
Table 6: Independent-sample t-test of the
reading posttest
Table 7: Independent-samples t-test of the
grammar posttest
The relationship between students'
classroom performances and their final-exam results
The third and fourth hypotheses of the study
were that there is no relationship between
the results obtained based on CBM
regarding reading and grammar during a
semester and the students' end-of-the-semester performances.
To investigate these hypotheses, two linear
correlations were run to explore how well
the mean scores of students’ performances
during the semester can predict their final
exam result. (See Tables 8 and 9).
Table 8: Linear regression analysis of
reading CBM and the final exams results
Table 9: Linear regression analysis of
grammar CBM and the final exams
results
As can be inferred from the above Tables,
there is a strong positive relationship
between the students’ performances during
the semester and at the end of the term both
in reading[r=.825, n=30] and
grammar[r=.856, n=30]. Furthermore, the
obtained significant levels, for both reading
and grammar results, are lower than
significant level of .05 and as a result,
reading and grammar test results during the
semester can significantly predict final exam
results. Therefore, it can be concluded that
the performances of students who were
assessed by CBM during the semester can
be a significant predictor of their final exam
results and the third and fourth null
hypotheses were rejected.
Discussion
The present study was an effort to apply
CBM in foreign language learning context.
As it was pointed out in the Background
section, much research has been done on
CBM in special education, general education
and psychology area, but in second language
context, it is relatively unknown. Therefore,
although all the components of the treatment
and data analysis were completely based on
the CBM research and theory in special and
general education, this study was among the
first studies which brought the CBM in to
the second language assessment classroom
domain.
As a consequence of the analysis of the test
results during the term, and comparing the
results of the pretest and posttest in the
experimental group, it was concluded that
CBM can be an effective method for
improving the grammar and reading
achievement of the learners. The
effectiveness of CBM is enhanced if the
learners’ performances are monitored step-by-step using graphs and if the students’
inadequacies are compensated using
interventions. CBM caused a gradual growth
in the students’ performances. This result
can be in line with the conclusion which has
been made in an overview of CBM research
by Stecker et al. (2005). They concluded
that teachers can expect significant growth
with CBM progress monitoring if they
simultaneously implement modifications or
interventions when warranted by student
data; however, frequent progress monitoring
alone did not appear to boost student
achievement.
After the treatment, two independent-samples t-tests were run to compare the
performance of the experimental and the
control group. The results indicated a
significant difference between the two
groups on the posttest. CBM apparently
caused experimental group to improve in
comparison with the control group. This
finding is in line with many studies which
used CBM in general education (e.g., Fuchs
& Fuchs, 1993; Stecker & Fuchs, 2000;
Fuchs, Fuchs, & Compton, 2004; and
Maxwell & Delaney, 2004). De Ramírez and
Shapiro (2006) also confirmed the
effectiveness of CBM for bilingual children
and for learning second language in
bilingual schools.
The findings in this regard also lend support
to Murphy’s (2006) argument that the
learning process can be improved if
formative assessment is conducted properly.
In sum, this study demonstrated the
formative potential of CBM to help students
foster their English grammar and reading
ability in the classroom. Interestingly, this
formative function of CBM as an assessment
procedure underscores the agreed upon
statement that, such formative assessment
data can help teachers identify areas of
strength or weakness of the students and
help them make informed decisions for
future teaching and learning process (Weir,
2001; Ellis, 2003).
The third and fourth hypotheses of the study
dealt with the investigation of the relation
between the formative assessment during the
semester and summative assessment at the
end of the semester. The results of the
correlation between the test scores during
the term and on the final exam revealed that
the results of CBM, as one of the methods of
formative assessment, can predict
summative results. To the best of our
knowledge, there are not any studies that
have investigated this issue in second
language learning domain to date. Yet there
is a study that investigated the relation
between formative and summative
assessment in undergraduates in oral surgery
(Anziani, Durham, and Moore, 2008). In
that study, no correlation was found between
the overall grades for the formative and
summative assessment. The obtained results
of that study seemingly contradicted the
present study. Maybe, this contradiction is
due to many factors such as using different
methods of formative assessment, different
educational settings, very different
participants, and the like. In conclusion,
because of the controversy observed in the
data, this issue needs to be investigated more
in different settings in the future.
The findings obtained also underscore the
washback effects of CBM in the sense that
this way of formative assessment would
drive teaching and hence learning. It is also
referred to as ‘measurement-driven
instruction ‘by Popham (1993). The
measurement-driven instruction is
achievable by encouraging the match
between the content and forms of the tests
and the content and forms of the curriculum.
This is referred to as ‘curriculum alignment’
by Sheppard (1993). In this study, the
implementation of curriculum-based
measurement during the experiment could
roughly help the instructor to match the
content and forms of the assessment
procedures with those of the curriculum in
the high school. Also, the results of the
experiment reported above confirm that the
match between assessment procedures and
the content of the instruction practiced in
this study is beneficial to the subjects and
hence furthers their learning.
To this end, The findings obtained from the
implementation of CBM as a formative
assessment procedure can be significantly
explained in the light of the conclusion
made by Ke (2006), that “Such formative
testing allows our teachers to tailor their
teaching energies toward continuing
instruction and toward providing timely
feedback for developmental purposes” (p.
216). It can thus be concluded that more
empirical evidence is needed for future
research to cast light on the relationship
between the components of the curriculum
such as the course objectives, program
goals, and the washback that practitioners
and teachers obtain.
Conclusion
As noted above, two findings were obtained
as a result of data analysis in this study.
First, the implementation of CBM in EFL
context was shown to be useful, that is, the
subjects in the experimental group were
more successful in improving their L2
grammar and reading as compared with
those in the control group. Second, the
assessment of the subjects’ class
performances positively predicted their final
scores on the achievement test. Thus, based
on the findings obtained in the present study,
the following concluding remarks are worth
mentioning as to the application of CBM in
EFL classrooms:
• Monitoring through using
CBM in the classroom
allows for the systematic
collection of comparative
data to determine the
significance or effect of
instruction and intervention
on individual learners or
groups of learners.
• CBM helps second language
teachers to have a step-by-step account of their
students’ progress during a
semester. It can aid teachers
to judge students’ ability,
growth, and efforts during
the term, and help them
before their final exam.
• CBM typically uses materials
from the student’s
curriculum and is
administered in a
standardized format so that
a given student’s
performance is comparable
from one assessment to
another. The 'motion
picture' that develops as the
results of several
assessments are plotted on
a graph, reflects the
student's progress.
• CBM results, as one of the
methods of formative
assessment, can yield
consequences that can
significantly predict the
course outcome.
Therefore, formative assessment can be a
significant predictor of summative
assessment.
Moreover, a number of implications can be
drawn from the results of this experimental
study that may possibly be useful for both
practitioners and teachers in EFL contexts.
First and foremost, CBM can help teachers
to find out how students are progressing in
basic skills such as reading, grammar, and
spelling since in CBM, each learner has a
chance to be assessed and graded several
times during the term. Second, the results of
the study can be also very helpful for stake-holders, such as students, teachers,
administrators, parents and education board;
in this way, CBM can help them
communicate with each other more
constructively. Teachers also can use the
CBM graph in conferences with their
colleagues and administrators, as it gives
them specific information about the
students’ progress and the success of the
instructional methods being used. Finally,
CBM, as an overlooked assessment system
but efficient method of formative
assessment can possibly open new horizons
in the domain of second language testing
and assessment. Language testing
researchers can investigate different aspects
of this reliable and pragmatic means of
measurement in assessing second language
skills.
However, due to the nature of experimental
research in classroom context, a number of
caveats may still limit the findings obtained
in this study. First, since data were collected
from a small size population, care must be
exercised in generalizing the findings of the
study to larger populations. With more
participants, the results of the study would
be more reliable and the obtained data
would be more generalizable. Finally, If
random assignment of the participants to
different groups were done in this study, the
obtained findings would be, for sure, more
dependable and generalizable than they are
now.
