The Impact of Portfolio Assessment on The Moroccan EFL Students’ Writing Engagement

Abstract

Although the pedagogical value of portfolio assessment is widely investigated, its impact on students’ engagement is still under-explored. Accordingly, this study intended to examine the impact of portfolio assessment on the Moroccan EFL students’ writing engagement. To this end, two groups of high school students were involved in the study. The two groups were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received the treatment; portfolio assessment accompanied with various reflection and assessment techniques (i.e. self-and peer-assessment and teacher-student conferences) whereas the control group followed the regular summative writing achievement tests. To enrich the data, the experimental group students’ views about portfolio assessment were elicited via students’ written reflections. The analysis of the quantitative data showed that the experimental group students achieved a higher and more significant level of writing engagement than the control group students. Furthermore, the analysis of the qualitative data revealed that the students positively perceived portfolio assessment to impact their writing engagement at various levels.