The Effect of Diagnostic Assessment on EFL Learners’ Performance on Selective and Productive Reading Tasks

Abstract

The main purpose of diagnostic assessment is to predict test-takers' strengths and weaknesses and use the information to provide suitable feedback to them (Jang & Wagner, 2014). Accordingly, the present study focused on investigating the effect of diagnostic assessment on selective and productive reading tasks to help English as a foreign language (EFL) learners improve their performance on these tasks. The quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was used and 60 participants were chosen based on the results of a Nelson proficiency test. The learners were chosen from four intact classes who were then divided into two groups of control and diagnostic assessment, each group comprising of two classes. Then, a modified version of the reading section of Key English Test (KET) (2015) with 28 selective and 27 productive items was used in the two groups as the pretest. The diagnostic assessment group received a feedback-based treatment on four reading tests during sixteen sessions of instruction. However, in the control group, the learners focused on reading texts and the corresponding tasks during the course. At the end of the semester, another modified version of KET reading test (2014) with 28 selective and 27 productive items was administered as the posttest. The results showed the diagnostic assessment group showed a significant improvement on both selective and productive tasks. Teachers may be the most beneficiaries of the present study as they can find useful information about their students' strengths and weaknesses through using diagnostic assessment to help them improve their reading comprehension ability.