Necessary but problematic: Chinese university English teachers’ perceptions and practices of assessing class participation

Class participation and feedback: a bet on the winning horse?

“…It is an active engagement process (Dancer & Kamvounias, 2005) considered essential to learning development by both faculty and students (Fritschner, 2000). As a multidimensional concept, it encompasses all aspects that suggest evidence of student engagement, from attendance to lectures to all kinds of contributions to class activities that can encourage students to learn on an ongoing basis and lead to improvements in their performance (Precourt & Gainor, 2019;Tang et al, 2020;Xu & Qiu, 2020).…”

“…The classic conception of class participation, limited to verbal interactions, has been overtaken by a much broader view, including anything that causes students to be more involved in active learning forms (Orwat et al, 2017). Class participation is a multidimensional concept that comprises many aspects that suggest evidence of student engagement, such as preparation prior to class (Dancer & Kamvounias, 2005;Hard & RaoShah, 2021), attendance (Dancer & Kamvounias, 2005;Fritschner, 2000;Hard & RaoShah, 2021), contribution to class activities and discussions (Dallimore et al, 2010;Dancer & Kamvounias, 2005;Fritschner, 2000;Xu & Qiu, 2020) and frequent small tasks (Tang et al, 2020;Thomlinson et al, 2010). Past research shows that these activities lead to personal and professional growth in students (Jones, 2008), result in a better understanding and retention of the material (Precourt & Gainor, 2019), enable students to demonstrate a broader range of skills (Richardson, 2015) and improve students' performance (Papageorgiou, 2019;Paisey & Paisey, 2004;Precourt & Gainor, 2019).…”

“…First, participation grading methods are subjective by nature (Precourt & Gainor, 2019), with grading criteria often unclear and difficult to define (Heyman & Sailors, 2011). This ambiguity in standards leads to a lack of transparency in the process of grading class participation (Xu & Qiu, 2020), which can lead to the use of class participation as a 'fudge factor' to justify an increase in students' final grades (Bean & Peterson, 1998). Second, giving feedback on unclear or subjective actions is challenging for lecturers.…”

“…In this study, we intend to solve two problems currently present in higher education: first, the lack of a clear, objective, and fair system to assess class participation, which, second, inevitably entails the impossibility of giving frequent feedback to students about their daily classwork in the course. Based on the previous literature, we designed a Work-In-Class Assessment Tool (WICAT) considering several items that can be used to measure students' engagement: attendance (Dancer & Kamvounias, 2005;Fritschner, 2000), contribution to class activities, and discussion (Dallimore et al, 2010;Xu & Qiu, 2020) and frequent small tasks (Tang et al, 2020). Each item is scored using a point system that allows instructors to obtain a weekly participation grade for each student in a clear, objective, and fairway.…”

Class participation and feedback: a bet on the winning horse?

“…This combination leads to higher grades than exams alone and appears to be preferred by students (Richardson, 2015). Within the concept of coursework, class participation has become a common requirement of many university courses (Xu & Qiu, 2020).…”