Assessment of Students’ Reading Comprehension Skills in Teaching English

Abstract

This article presents the reading comprehension skills of freshmen and sophomores majoring in English at the Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University. The main goal of the paper is to discuss the value of assessment in identifying students’ reading proficiency in higher education. Another goal is to help teachers identify assessment criteria and give feedback to students in developing reading comprehension skills. In addition, the article explains the application of assessment strategies and evaluation criteria for various reading comprehension skill levels. The last goal of the research paper is to demonstrate the benefits of formative assessment to both teachers and students. For this purpose, the experiment examines the students’ reading comprehension abilities. The study included 31 female and 23 male student participants from the English language faculty. The participants were chosen on purpose from the first and second years of the academic year 2021-2022. The designed survey questions were used to collect data. Qualitative analyses were used to analyze the students’ results. According to the findings, teachers believe that reading assessment is an important component of effective reading instruction. Throughout the study, both teachers and students valued the role of formative assessment in improving reading comprehension.

1. Introduction

This research presents the importance of assessment as one of the most effective steps in teaching English. Moreover, developing reading comprehension skills in teaching English is more explored by many researchers [1, 2]. Recent research highlight a few considerations exploring measuring reading comprehension that is most typically performed among university students [3].

The term “assessment of reading skills” [4] is seen as the practice of defining the students’ reading ability of their skimming, scanning, pronunciation, and interpretation skills). In addition, the term “assessment criteria” is used to refer to the reading process and what criteria measure reading scores in teaching. The concept of “ongoing assessment” includes elements of formative assessment, such as activities, methods, or techniques used in evaluating students reading skills regularly. In brief, “giving constructive feedback” conduct’ or “washback effect” [5] mean what happens between teacher and students to determine students’ strength and weaknesses while reading texts of different genres.

The research will focus on the following research questions:

• What are the benefits of applying reading assessment?

• What are the challenges faced by the teachers in implementing reading assessment?

• How is the role of formative assessment in reading comprehension defined?

Assessment in developing reading comprehension skills involves the ability of readers to critically evaluate information in a text in addition to word decoding and content comprehension [6, 7]. Moreover, this research aims to explore the main obstacles and difficulties that impede students’ text comprehension, as well as developing linguistic, communication, and critical thinking skills. The article presents a new type of standardized reading assessment tasks formats by applying formative assessment tasks that motivate students in reading comprehension.

It is known that from the secondary school level, students have experience with linguistic assessment of reading, and at the university level, there is a need to acquire new skills based on previous knowledge.

Furthermore, this research introduces one of the main issues, the differences between the assessment and evaluation process, in many cases, teachers find it difficult to explain the difference between assessment and evaluation. Although these two terms are each a quality factor, they are used interchangeably, there is a noticeable difference between them. Assessment collects evidence of learner performance, evaluation process provides a measurement of performance based on data collection and analysis [8].

Additionally, it is essential that assessing students’ reading skills in English at an intermediate level is crucial in starting the steps of bachelor’s degrees in universities. It is known that freshmen and sophomore students at the university should take reading classes in English at a more adequate level. In this case, students’ interest in reading is measured by the assessment of their comprehension skills.

The evaluation of reading comprehension in the teaching English language provides teachers with important information about students’ weaknesses and reading needs, obstacles, and challenges. The article attempts to provide fair evidence for adequate assessment of reading comprehension.

It is contradictory, in many cases, accepting the assessment from the learning as a separate process makes a great challenge in the assessment of language skills because of time limitations [9].

Another purpose of the paper aims the importance of using reliable criteria to assess reading skills in achieving learning outcomes and to give constructive feedback to the students for improving their reading. In this paper, the authors introduce essential skills that must be assessed in reading, as well as good morphological, syntactical, and vocabulary knowledge, recall of relevant details, and summarizing skills for these study levels. Therefore, this article focuses on examining to assess students’ interpretation skills in reading texts when using interactive and genre knowledge [10].

Recently, many studies have been conducted on the correct assessment of reading in the development of bottom-up and top-down skills in reading.

According to Richards and Alderson, curricula play an important role in providing students with the necessary skills to understand fiction, documentaries, and non-academic texts at the intermediate reading level. There has been a growing interest in the development of an English language curriculum that promotes the acquisition of bottom-up and top-down skills in reading effectively [11, 12].

Nevertheless, in checking the comprehension level of reading texts of different genres teachers face many problems in evaluating reading performance at the initial stage of higher education [13]. However, the university system is focused on test-based examinations or taking the paper-based exam on writing theoretical rules of reading strategies to provide sophomore students with reading effectively. Short-answer items are the most preferred tests utilized in ongoing assessment (formative assessment) methods.

Thus, it is necessary to avoid such assessment tools that disturb students to demonstrate their true abilities. Therefore, it was important to ask them about the effective assessment criteria that they do not use. The students emphasized the importance of using ongoing classroom tasks and activities as useful assessment tools during the experiment. Thus, assessment tools for developing reading abilities do not impose test conditions and help students learn without fear or stress.

2. Literature review

2.1 Reading assessment in the English language teaching

Assessment has become an essential part of effective teaching and learning. Azerbaijan Education has shifted the assessment norms in English language teaching in universities. Several guidelines have already been developed on the simultaneous application of assessment in education in teaching English. Although there has been some progress in applying new assessment guidelines, the summative assessment has been taken as a student outcome in learning. Traditionally, summative assessment has been accepted to identify students’ English language knowledge and skills [14].

Developing reading comprehension skills in teaching English is considered an essential language skill in foreign language teaching. Therefore, this study examines and presents the exploration and analysis of different new theoretical approaches to developing adequate reading assessment.

According to Douglas Brown [15], assessment is an integral part of the teaching cycle and is applied throughout the learning process. Assessment tasks and tests in reading can provide motivation, feedback, and authenticity to the students in learning. Moreover, the role of reading comprehension in English in students’ understanding of problems, evaluation, and independent thinking is undeniable in higher education [1].

In addition, the researchers Barr, Tagg [16], Black, Wiliam [17] state that the effective acquisition of reading skills in teaching English in higher education is also measured by the assessment obtained in the exams. It is known that an exam-oriented assessment process does not ensure uniform language skills in reading. Students can play an active role in the learning process to evaluate each other’s reading skills with peers [8]. Rethinasamy [18] and Mermelstein [19] noted that classroom assessment is an ongoing process that uses judgments about students’ language learning, knowledge, skills, abilities, and other achievements. Thus, reading assessment should allow them to improve their reading in English.

Literature analysis shows that the difficulties during the reading process are indicated in three areas: students’ low-level communication skills in reading activities and low students’ motivation to engage in reading. Though teachers use reading assignments and class tests to evaluate student reading skills and development, they are more likely to choose the summative assessment method than the formative or alternative assessment for improving reading comprehension. It allows teachers to assess as part of the classroom’s ongoing learning activities, thus directly linking assessment with the curriculum. The curriculum should reflect learning outcomes related to acquiring bottom-up and top-down skills in reading comprehension. It is essential to evaluate student performance in direct relation to the curriculum and learning outcomes [20, 21].

Furthermore, reading assessment in English language teaching is considered in four aspects: students’ general reading level, students’ reading comprehension, reading for information and argument, reading strategies, and reading as leisure [22]. Regarding these, conducting a formative assessment is more productive than a summative assessment in the learning process. Black and Wiliam [9] stated that assessing reading is the main factor influencing students’ ability to develop reading comprehension skills in formative classroom-based assessments.

Finally, it is proved that the assessment should be carried out by teachers in the classroom and get an opportunity to use formative assessments instead of summative tests. Students feel free to demonstrate their performance in the classroom performances and participate in the reading process using dialogs, role plays, stories, and summaries. It allows students to develop their personalities, talents, needs, and interests in the reading process. Classroom-based assessment promotes student progress in reading and contributes to their language learning [16].

2.2 Reading assessment strategies

Recently Perera-Diltz and Moe [23] claimed that formative assessments improve teachers’ instructional practice and allow them to track students’ progress toward standards. This assessment motivates students to build self-confidence pre, while, and after the reading process to comprehend the content. Linse & Nunan [24] and Freeman and Brown [17] point out that reading strategies open good opportunities for assessing reading in an ongoing process. Reading strategies encompass many aspects in conducting pre, while, and after the reading process. Students can respond to all questions, select a word or structure, identify new information, visualize it, schematically interpret content, or summarize in a short context.

It is clear that to become efficient readers of English, two required skills are crucial:

1. bottom-up strategies for recognizing words and phrases to enrich vocabulary size.

2. top-down skills to drive reading strategies and conceptual comprehension.

Moreover, bottom-up strategies entail assessing reading ability measured for the effectiveness of comprehension. In the top-down approach to reading, students can comprehend content and format schemata to demonstrate cultural experiences for interpretation. The main essential factor in bottom-up strategies is assessing students’ metacognitive skills (predicting, questioning, paraphrasing, visualizing, evaluating, and summarizing) through using formative classroom assessments [15, 25].

Additionally, reading comprehension skills in English are understood as reading for comprehending meaning in different genres and entertainment. It involves decoding specific words to demonstrate higher-order thinking skills. First, they must be able to practice fundamental bottom-up strategies, such as selecting new words, phrases, and appropriate terminologies, and new information on fiction, documentaries, and non-academic texts [7].

Finally, the readers boost a top-down approach, freewriting in summarizing the content on a schema, using prior knowledge and background information, and acquiring all interpretations effectively [26].

2.3 Formative assessment criteria in reading

According to Gipps [27] and Gladwell, L. Leslie [28], the main goal of applying formative assessment are to provide students with appropriate tasks and tests that motivate them to read. Moreover, Cohen [25] and Hudson [29] emphasized that the teacher should make descriptive rubrics for analyzing students’ cognitive and metacognitive skills in reading. Teachers should prepare holistic and analytic assessment criteria for assessing various reading activities. In addition, the assessment criteria or descriptive rubrics aim to boost students’ critical and creative skills to accomplish reading tasks. According to these criteria, students should improve their linguistic, communicative, and discourse skills in reading. For this purpose, teachers should give constructive or judgmental feedback to each student with clear explanations. Thus, the analysis of the study shows formative assessment tasks and testing are helpful for students to achieve the main goal and support teachers’ activity in teaching [13, 30, 31]. Finally, Cohen [25] presents the following formative assessment criteria for reading comprehension (Table 1).

Bottom-up strategies criteria	Top-down strategies criteria
Demonstrating reading speed and fluency Showing phonemic awareness; Reading Think aloud; Recognizing words and phrases; Comparing morphological and syntactical structures; Demonstrating reading speed and fluency	Demonstrating scanning; Identify types genres and meaning; Predicting the content; Participating in questioning; Visualizing events and facts; Analyzing the passages; Summarizing the text

Table 1.

Reading assessment criteria [25].

Brown [17], Linse and Nunan [24], Rouet and Britt [7] stated that the comprehension process constructs meaning and fluency. Fluency is the main criterion for checking to understand and focuses on developing spoken language. Fluency contributes to students’ boosting memory and provides an opportunity for understanding reading [32].

They mentioned that university students must become efficient readers of English. The different types of reading help develop students’ micro-skills in reading comprehension. Learners should focus on learning reading style to acquire short-term memory in reading fiction, documentaries, and non-academic reading. Recognizing words, word classes, as nouns and verbs, and sequence of tenses, agreement, and different grammatical forms is significant for effective paraphrasing.

According to Kendeou et al. [13] different genres improve students’ macro skills that entail developing communicative functions. Therefore, it is essential to assess learners’ genre reading skills to identify their purpose for reading. They read extensive types of reading, as well as novels, fiction, non-fiction, journals, magazines, announcements, job-related articles, schemata, and other genres of reading. The learners should describe facts and opinions, chronological events, causes and effects, and problem solutions. Several issues were raised in reading schemata in reading. The schemata reading assists students in extracting appropriate meaning and accomplishing the purpose of information. In this case, students need to relate data using numbers and activities for a good interpretation. It is essential to read schemata in English at the university level.

2.4 Standardized reading tasks in formative assessment

Standardized reading tests are conducted for assessing students’ linguistic skills, phonemic, lexical, grammatical, reading aloud, vocabulary, and grammar skills. This assessment has only one tool for indicating students’ cognitive or bottom-up skills [6]. On the contrary, Dennis [33] and Brown H. Douglas [15] proved that utilizing different formats of tests can improve comprehension skills as the best assessment tool.

According to Perera-Diltz and Moe [23], contrary to using standardized assessment tasks, formative assessment must be used for students’ reading comprehension to acquire essential top-down skills (Table 2).

No.	Assessing reading comprehension
	Standardized reading tasks	Formative assessment tasks
1	Filling in gaps	Choosing keywords for specific information
2	Cloze test	Finding the main idea
3	C-tests (removing initial letters of words)	Answer the open-ended questions
4	Making the passages in order	Read aloud and pronounce correctly
5	The gaps in the text	Delete the extra ideas from the text
6	Putting heading in paragraphs	Visualize the content of the text
7	Multiple choice test	Choose the author’s ideas and paraphrase
8	Sentence completion	Evaluate the new information
9	Matching the sentences	Combine the paragraphs on schemata
10	Choosing extra ideas	Relate the new ideas to the real life
11	Choosing True and False answers	Use the “Think aloud” method in reading
12	Summarizing	Prepare a short report on reading text

Table 2.

Formative assessment tasks for reading comprehension [23].

Comparing formative assessment tasks with standardized general reading tests in the table, it can be seen that ongoing assessment tasks are more effective in developing critical thinking and understanding. Standardized testing in reading seems very traditional today. The formative assessment tasks on reading comprehension make it possible for the readers to acquire both linguistic and communicative skills [3].

2.5 Methodology

The participants in this study enrolled 54 undergraduate students, 4 teachers, and 2 instructors from the teaching department of the university were registered for the study. The average age of the participants is between 19 and 20. The setting is Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University. First, there was a whole assessment criterion for selection. Secondly, the participants were divided randomly among boys (N = 23) and girls (N = 31). Gladwell [34] claimed: “Qualitative Reading Inventory is more important to identify students’ strengths and difficulties in assessing reading skills”. Qualitative research is a methodology tool for exploring challenges and searching for research questions to gather all of the information on the anticipated study. Therefore, the study presents the following research questions:

1. What measurement tools should be used in assessing freshmen and sophomore students’ reading skills?

The qualitative research approach was utilized to examine students’ and teachers’ perceptions of using formative assessments in reading classes. Participants claimed that formative assessment is the best tool to identify their strengths and weaknesses in reading. The research conducted open-ended interview questions so that participants could share their reading skills, and experiences with formative assessment. Additionally, the interviews and observations were compared and problems were identified. The records were taken from focus group members and teachers’ responses are compared to reading assessment criteria.

First, all interviews were recorded in transcription.

Interview questions:

1. What kind of tasks is appropriate to assess students’ reading skills?

2. What can you say about bottom-up technologies in reading?

3. How do you explain top-down or metacognitive skills in reading?

However, the study planned procedures in the following phases for adjusting students’ reading levels.

Phase 1. To select participants from the general student population, including English Language Learners and other respondents.

Phase 2. The goal of assessing students’ reading levels and selecting appropriate test items must be clear to generate feedback and assign valid scores. In addition, tests should have various purposes to evaluate students’ different reading skills. The content of tests is to achieve students’ cognitive and metacognitive skills. Participants were provided holistic and analytic rubrics for assessing reading comprehension to identify their levels. Thus, it is also crucial for teachers and learners to understand specific criteria and scores in reading [11].

Phase 3. Developing reading tasks and testing items according to the scoring criteria.

The first step in this phase is to develop reading tasks that can assess score items.

The items are supposed to measure specifications on learning outcomes in reading comprehension and content standards. Reading assessment should be measured on standardized assessment tasks (Rethinasamy S. and Ramanair J.) [18].

The common problem realized that teachers and students improve only linguistic skills (bottom-up) in reading comprehension skills than communicative or discourse skills. They need to achieve metacognitive skills (top-down) in comprehending completely.

2.6 Findings and discussion

Surveys were conducted among the students enrolled, and the purpose of the surveys was to design the students’ strengths and weaknesses in their reading skills. The data survey questions included student levels, and gender differences among students were mainly included. A survey was conducted to check the level of understanding of reading strategies among boys and girls. Tests and exercises were presented to determine the levels of comprehension among the students, and as the survey result, the frequency of reading, acquisition rate, and the final score were described in the table (Table 3).

Assessment methods	Boys	Girls
Spelling in vocabulary	37%	63%
Identifying the meaning of words	42%	42%
Skimming for specific information	42%	58%
Scanning for analysis in details	38%	62%
Participating in questioning	45%	55%
Doing multiple choice test	34%	66%
Comprehending cloze test	32%	63%
Generalizing ideas	36%	64%

Table 3.

Survey analysis on doing reading comprehension tasks between girls and boys.

The survey aimed to collect several assessment methods and activities learners applied in the learning process and how they acquired good reading skills. They could demonstrate comprehension, predict, and recognize the words, improve vocabulary, use it in interpretation, and analyze different types of texts adequately. The observations showed that the girls have more achievements than the boys participating in reading activities to demonstrate good reading comprehension skills (Table 4).

Gender	Frequency	Rate	Medium score
Boys	16	39%	28
Girls	21	61%	35
Total	40	100%	63

Table 4.

Survey results of students’ reading acquisition levels (frequency, rate score).

Another survey was conducted between boys and girls on reading comprehension frequency, quick understanding of new information and the percentage of understanding and mastering the content of the text, and finally the acquisition of metacognitive skills. For this purpose, several evaluation techniques were incorporated into the survey design. As a result, respondents were able to obtain a medium score after completing the formative assessment tasks (Table 5).

Reading comprehension skills	Agree	Disagree
I can spell and recognize the words	77%	23%
I can memorize the meaning of words	58%	42%
I can select specific information	49%	51%
I can comprehend the meaning	62%	38%
I can answer the questions	71%	29%
I can do grammar test	78%	22%
I can visualize the events	37%	53%
I can make a short summary	31%	69%

Table 5.

The survey analysis of students’ attitudes in doing reading assessment tasks.

Survey analysis proved that many students have good linguistic skills in reading and approved that comprehending seemed challenging perceptions. Several time observations were taken during the learning process to determine students’ perceptions in assessing their reading skills. The class observations are conducted in some reading sessions as constructive tools to take notes or data in detail [35]. Regarding the qualitative research methodology, it is more important to collect data on students’ progress in getting knowledge and skills in assessing reading. Thus, observation lists were used in the classes, and some notes in comparison were taken.

2.7 Challenges in reading assessment

Observations realized that students have some issues with predicting, identifying information, questioning, visualizing, and summarizing. Sophomore students have background knowledge in reading with translating, identifying new words and structures, choosing true and false answers, and responding to close-ended questions on a text model. They have some problems getting confused about the meaning of words and sentences; lack of skills to connect ideas in a passage; eliminate some words that are not important; analyze statements to distinguish important information from the text using minor detail; making passages in order; to explore cause and effect relationship; to use comparison and contrast; to concentrate themselves during reading [16, 36, 37]. Students’ attitudes toward reading skills in different genres were observed with different indicators between boys and girls (Table 6).

Gender	Fiction (%)	Documentaries (%)	Non-academic text (%)
Boys	14%	23%	26%
Girls	32%	29%	35%
Total	46%	52%	61%

Table 6.

Survey analysis of students’ reading skills in different genres.

The biggest problem is in reading and understanding texts of different genres. The main problem is reading various genres without analyzing them because of misunderstanding. The study proved that students have more interest in reading non-academic texts in English.

2.8 Teachers’ challenges in the assessment of reading skills

The research aim is for students to improve assessment reading comprehension skills and explores various theoretical basis on this issue. Rethinasamy and Ramanair [18] suggests that teachers should implement reading assessment as an activity and procedure in English language teaching. These procedures include planning, implementing, and documenting the assessment process. However, teachers’ assessment experience of reading skills is limited [13] in teaching. Teachers’ main problem is to design formative assessment tasks for assessing reading. They get satisfied having students do more linguistic tasks, vocabulary tasks, multiple-choice tests on mastering good grammar, and several phonetic tasks for spelling in reading [34].

Artieda [38] and Veloo et al. [39] discovered that more university teachers hardly used classroom-based assessment in developing reading skills because they do not consider it helpful to the students. This explains why they practice limited classroom-based assessment because the higher education assessment model determines students reading levels by doing paper-based tests instead of practicing reading strategies. They argued that high-stakes testing has negative effects on reading assessment.

First, the discussion revealed that the majority of students should be aware of the requirements of assessment in improving their reading comprehension skills. They argue that the assessment criteria were helpful to identify their levels of reading. Only a few of them (2–3 students) feel stressed while assessing. Secondly, the study discovered that high leveled exam tests that entail theoretical explanations on papers cause fear in students and they could not solve any problems in the current situation.

It is a fact that in the assessment of reading comprehension, students should be involved in various tests, assignments, and daily classroom activities to develop cognitive and metacognitive skills in reading. The variations of tasks are based on well-structured tests and activities to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the texts for assessment. According to the survey responses, most of the teachers were able to make some progress in reading comprehension by using these types of tasks. The study has related factors that several measurements in formative assessment provide evidence in reading [40]. This evidence was identified in students’ activities in the classroom-based reading process.

Moreover, data analysis shows that teachers’ practice in assessing students’ reading skills should be based on using different instructions to measure students’ reading comprehension. They preferred using linguistic tests to communicative task techniques. Hence, students have challenges in involving reading activities and assessing their linguistic, cognitive, and communicative skills to comprehend texts. Another challenge is to have a lack of motivation, reading fluency, and using vocabulary in reading.

Additionally, formative assessment tasks provide all requirements shown above so that teachers could collect all detailed information about their student’s progress. Furthermore, all information allows teachers to provide students with appropriate feedback to the students that master their expected skills in reading.

Discussing some lack in the observation process with students expressed their lack of motivation and getting stressed in the assessment process. Therefore, this lack is shown in comprehension of the text and achieving top-down skills. They need appropriate activities to predict the content, predict further events, find cause-effect, make the comparison, analyze the passages, and give a short summarization.

Finally, teachers and students mentioned that effective feedback is the best option to boost learners’ further learning. Students are unaware of what areas are being assessed during reading or if they needed feedback to improve their reading. The feedback from the teacher helps them be aware of their level. Another finding was that teachers have an average level of insufficient experience in assessment or measuring scores of reading comprehension, therefore they need to involve training in implementing the assessment.

3. Conclusion

The research paper presents the importance and the role of assessment in reading comprehension which has been proven by many theoretical studies. This study showed that the reading comprehension assessment of undergraduate students makes them aware of their strengths and weaknesses in reading. The assessment provides students with opportunities for them to improve their reading comprehension skills across different reading strategies. Therefore, the assessment process should depend on clear criteria to indicate and inform teachers and learners about their reading levels.

Moreover, the article proved that it is necessary to provide freshmen and sophomore students with productive assessment tasks that provide metacognitive skills, rather than linguistic tests and tasks. The formative assessment tasks presented in the article respond to assessing students more adequately.

Nevertheless, both teachers and students have enough difficulties in the assessment of reading. It was pointed out that linguistic tests in reading comprehension do not develop any thinking skills, only content repetition and grammar knowledge. It realized that summative assessment in reading has a negative effect on students’ comprehension. Students get stressed because of a lack of knowledge of reading strategies in a short period of time.

For this purpose, motivation, stress relief, and the principle of authenticity should be fully provided so that they feel self-development in reading, but not a test of knowledge in reading. In this case, the tasks on reading strategies should be applied in the reading assessment.

The methodology of the research showed that the qualitative method was the most successful tool for conducting this research. The article comments on the importance of tasks applied in formative assessment and evidence showed students’ dynamic growth in reading comprehension skills through surveys.

Formative assessments based on measurable criteria and rubrics can also provide correlation in daily reading activities. It is a fact, the formative assessment allows teachers to see intensively students’ strengths and weaknesses in reading. Therefore, tasks that meet formative assessment criteria can provide excellent information about learner achievement. The survey results showed that the respondents believed that ongoing formative assessment was the best tool for assessing reading comprehension.

In addition, teachers need sufficient training and experience in assessing reading comprehension skills in English. This research realized that teachers need to assess this skill on the criteria and to get.

a clear view of their learners’ needs.

Hence, this study can benefit the improvement of English reading comprehension skills of lower-course university students and new strategies can be effectively applied in the assessment of reading skills.

At the same time, it will improve both students’ and teachers’ assessment knowledge and skills in the.

reading process.