Onsite and online summative assessment and EFL learners’ perceptions of task engagement within hybrid instruction: case of master’s students at the university of Algiers 2

Abstract EN

This article reports on a study aimed at investigating EFL master’s degree students’ perceptions of task engagement in onsite and online end-of-term exams within hybrid instruction.

the study further attempts to examine the reasons these students advance to justify their engagement with onsite and online modes of assessment.

towards these aims, a sequential, embedded mixed-methods approach was used.

to obtain quantitative data, a questionnaire was administered to 40 master 1 and 40 master 2 students.

moreover, a semi-structured interview was used to gather qualitative data from 5 master 1 and 5 master 2 students.

the overall findings of the study showed that students perceive onsite exams to be moderately more engaging when doing learning tasks than online exams, particularly at master 1 level, but the results of master 2 students’ performance were less significant.

the participants’ perceptions were mainly motivated by the fairness, challenge, course credit, and extrinsic motivation of onsite exams.

a closer analysis of the reasons they advanced to justify their onsite exam engagement revealed some factors related to challenges of online exams, such as issues of cheating and internet connection disturbances.

it can therefore be suggested that if these problems were attended to adequately in the future, students’ perceptions of task engagement with online-assessed courses may be improved, and hence be equally positive for onsite-assessed courses.