A Comparative Study of Two Ways of Presentation of Listening Assessment: Moving towards Internet-based Assessment

Abstract

Despite the theoretical importance of internet-based assessment, there is a paucity of experimental research into it. The present study, as an experimental study, is an attempt to compare internet-based and paper-based assessment of listening comprehension for secondary students. In so doing, 36 male students who were studying English language at a secondary school in Tehran participated in this study. The students were divided into two groups: one control group which was exposed to paper-based assessment and one experimental group which was exposed to internet-based assessment developed by the researchers providing the students with the listening quizzes and tests and guidelines including assessment techniques such as leading questions and hints. Following the treatment which lasted for fifteen sessions, the results of the one-way ANCOVA confirmed that there was a significant difference between the two groups on post-test scores on the listening test. Indeed, internet-based group outperformed paper-based group in their listening scores. Having examined the significant difference between the students’ scores in internet-based assessment obtained from Time 1, Time 2 and Time 3, as measured by the ANOVA, the results indicated that there were statistically significant differences at the p