Investigating the impact of convergent vs. Divergent assessment on ESL students’ anxiety and test performance

Abstract

Language assessment with its eye-catching nature, casts its spell on many researchers, spurring on them to study its telling role in different arenas. The present study with a closer look to the realm, keeps one eye on two fresh approaches in assessment, namely convergent and divergent, and the other one on anxiety in a bid to slash its negative impact on students’ performance. The researchers resort to a correlational method with Ex Post Facto design, along with different tests, to forward the foregoing aim; discovering and appraising the degree of relationship stands between the two variables. Analyzing data gathered in this hybrid research on 55 young Iranian male and female students in two schools, located in United Arab Emirates (UAE), the researchers reaped findings which bore witness to the main proposed hypotheses, illustrating that divergent assessment (DA) was more effective in reducing learners’ test anxiety level in comparison with convergent assessment (CA) which, in turn, led up to better performance in the participants. Some implications for EFL teachers, to include the similar strategies in their lesson plan, offered at the very end which is followed by proposing some new horizons for further studies and investigations.