Formative Assessment and Self-Regulated Learning in EFL Writing: A Mixed-Methods Classroom Intervention
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62497/irjed.276Keywords:
formative assessment, self-regulated learning, EFL writing, feedback, self-assessment, peer feedback, learner autonomyAbstract
Introduction. Formative assessment is most educationally consequential when learners use evidence about their current performance to regulate subsequent action. In EFL writing, however, feedback can remain teacher-controlled, with students receiving comments without developing the capacity to interpret criteria, monitor their progress, and make independent revision decisions.
Objective. This study is designed to examine whether a structured formative-assessment intervention can improve EFL learners’ academic writing performance and self-regulated writing strategies, and to identify the classroom processes through which students use feedback, self-assessment, peer response, goal setting, and reflection.
Method. A mixed-methods, two-group classroom intervention is proposed for approximately 80 university EFL learners. The formative-assessment group will participate in an eight-week cycle of explicit criteria instruction, self-assessment, peer feedback, teacher feedback, revision planning, and reflection. A comparison group will receive conventional writing instruction and teacher feedback. Pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test writing tasks will be scored analytically, while a self-regulated writing questionnaire, revision records, learning journals, and interviews will provide complementary evidence.
Results. No empirical results are claimed at this manuscript stage because no participant dataset was supplied. The planned analyses will estimate changes in writing performance and self-regulated strategy use, compare intervention and comparison trajectories, examine delayed maintenance, and integrate qualitative evidence concerning goal setting, monitoring, feedback handling, and reflection.
Conclusion. The proposed intervention operationalizes formative assessment as a learning process rather than a sequence of teacher comments. Its central test is whether repeated opportunities to interpret evidence, make judgments, revise, and reflect produce stronger writing and greater learner control over writing processes.
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