Student Perceptions of the Foundation Programme Assessment in Two Colleges in Oman.

This study investigates student perceptions of the English language assessment in terms of its effectiveness, reliability, validity and the students? preference of its constituting instruments. It included 184 students from two Colleges in Oman who participated in responding to a questionnaire, of those 106 students participated in gender specific focus groups. The data obtained from the questionnaire was analysed for descriptive statistics and significant differences amongst the groups using Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis Test. Student views expressed in focus groups were analysed using thematic content analysis. The results suggested that the students perceived FP assessment as generally effective but they were ill-informed about its nature and contents. The data also indicated that there was a perceived need for more assessment instruments and an unexpected low social impact of FP assessment considering its high stakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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