Adult Learners’ Perceptions of a Blog-based Assessment in an English as a Second Language Course

Abstract

This study was conducted in order to gather adult learners’ perceptions on the use of blogs for assessing their English writing skills in terms of the perceived benefits, drawbacks, and technical constraints. Being a case study, the research involved a group of adult ESL learners following an English proficiency course at the undergraduate level in a state university in Sri Lanka. It was conducted by using a survey-type questionnaire shared with the purposive sample of year one arts undergraduates who were in the second semester of study. Descriptive statics were used for data tabulation and percentages were generated to decipher the sample’s reaction to a blog-based assessment given to them during the first semester of study. The findings from the data analysis indicate that these students perceived blogs as a valid, acceptable, and beneficial form of assessment that can also improve and motivate them to write in the second language. However, they also admitted that challenges remain when authoring blogs, such as poor bandwidth and lack of connectivity, difficulty in understanding instructions on creating blog accounts, having their content plagiarized, and technical constraints. From the findings, there is a suggestion to first promote the use of blog entries to assess students’ writing skills as a continued practice and second to formulate strategies to counteract the challenges. To sum up, the main findings reveal that in spite of some difficulties, these ESL learners had a highly positive attitude towards the use of blog-based assessments for testing their English writing skills.