Students’ Perspectives on EFL Course Participation and its Assessment: A Focus on Conversation Classes in Gyeong-Gi

Students’ Perspectives on EFL Course Participation and its Assessment: A Focus on Conversation Classes in Gyeong-Gi

This manuscript explored students’ perspectives of course participation assessment, specifically looking at a basic EFL undergraduate conversation course, which requires its instructors to measure course participation, or contribution. This study investigated students’ knowledge of and beliefs regarding course participation grading, or assessment, practices through a survey instrument. Study findings indicated significant correlation between: the need for Participation Assessment Rubric, the need for Strong Disclosure of Participation Assessment Specifics: Value and Objectives, the need to Convey Instructor Expectations and Philosophy for Participation Responsibilities, and Students’ Personality and Individual issues by contingency analysis. Moreover, the study highlighted student opinion regarding participation in terms of contribution to learning, credence in instructor assessment, participation tasks, and openly disclosed assessment by logit regression. Validity was found to have the greatest effect on students’ belief that participation is an essential part of an English conversation course. Implications for the future direction of participation, especially assessment, were also detailed.