Portfolio assessment and students’ autonomy in language learning

Abstract EN

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of portfolio assessment as a process-oriented mechanism on the autonomy of first year English students at Abdelhamid Ibn Badis University of Mostaganem.

The participants were 48 male and female EFL students to whom the Learner Autonomy Questionnaire (Kashefian, 2002) was administered as a pre-and post-test.

The portfolio assessment was integrated into the experimental groups within the Written Expression course to explore whether and to what extent their autonomy might get enhanced.

The data were analyzed using two independent samples t tests, a paired sample t-test and mean scores.

The results showed that the portfolio assessment process helped the students’ develop some self-assessment learning attitudes.

But, engaging in such a process did not support them gain a considerable degree of autonomy which allows them to act by themselves.

This is so, since they were still relying on their teacher as their views reflected.