Formative assessment in an English academic writing class in Iran: The role of power and emotion

Abstract

This critical action research study with Iranian nursing students examines how the innovative use of formative assessment changed the nature of learning and teaching in an academic writing class over the summer of 2012. The study draws on three sets of literature, namely critical academic writing, democratic systems of assessment including critical testing, and critical emotion theories to examine how the participants experience formative assessment, the impact of formative assessment on their writing development and on their attitudes towards and perceptions of assessment, teaching and learning academic writing and teaching and learning in general. Drawing on the analysis of varied sources of data, including lesson plans, the writing samples and the narratives of the 12 participants including myself, the research findings show that the use of formative assessment went beyond merely forming and informing learning and teaching including the associated assessment processes, to re-forming and transforming them. The findings also suggest that, besides key characteristics of formative assessment enumerated in the literature, there are other contributing factors to the complexity of assessment, as a situated and power-oriented process, and accordingly to teaching and learning academic writing. The findings reveal the complexity of participants‘ responses to the program, partly shaped and re-shaped by the comfort and discomfort associated with the past experiences and by the development of ‗critical hope‘. The praxis of formative assessment demands that learners and teachers acknowledge and embrace the role of power and emotion through dialogic reflectivity and criticality. It also demands a close attention to time and the interplay of the past, present and future which shape and re-shape the context and the participant‘s experience in this context. The findings from this study demonstrates that attending to power, emotion and time opens up productive ways to teaching and assessing academic writing.