Abstract:

Technology has the potential to change education, as it can improve learning results and assessment procedures. With new methods of teaching and learning having emerged, it is essential to investigate faculty practices, as well as students’ openness to these new approaches. In this quantitative study, 341 undergraduate students and 70 faculty members from Portuguese higher education institutions responded to an online survey. The aim of this investigation was to explore the teaching methods and resources that English language faculties select and compare their perceptions of the use of technology-enhanced assessment tools with students’ views on this theme. The results show that faculty and student perceptions of e-assessment practices differ slightly. Considering assessment tools used in English language classes, faculties mostly use gap-filling and true/false quizzes, whereas most students refer to multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blanks quizzes as the most used tools. More innovative solutions, such as serious games tools, were the least used tools in English language classes. Other results demonstrate that project-based learning seems to be the main approach regarding the use of Information and Communication Technologies in English language classes, with Moodle being the most popular platform and the computer still being the most common resource.

Keywords:

students, faculty, higher education, ICT, ELL, assessment