Students' Perceptions Toward the Implementation of Portfolio-Based Assessment in the Academic Reading Course

Abstract

Portfolio-based assessment, is now increasingly and widely implemented in the higher education level, such as, in the university level. As it is strongly argued by Michelson & Mandell (2004) that portfolio actively engage learners in understanding the relationship between the culture of academic knowledge in higher education and that is required in the workplace. The purpose of this study was to find out the students' perceptions toward the implementation of portfolio-based assessment in the academic reading course. The participants of the study were 100 intermediate level EFL students at the Faculty of Language and Literature (FLL) of Satya Wacana Christian University (SWCU) Salatiga, who have already taken Academic Reading course. A portfolio attitude questionnaire was mainly used as the main and the only instrument to collect the data in this study. The results of the study indicated that the participants of this study generally prefer to be evaluated by portfolio-based assessment rather than be assessed by traditional paper-pencil tests, and also most of the participants believed that portfolio-based assessment also contributes to their English learning processes. It was also found out that a number of the participants have positive attitudes towards portfolio assessment in their academic reading course.