ESP Teachers’Sociocultural Challenges in Online Formative Assessment: Voices of Teachers, Learners, and Coordinators

Abstract

It has been a relatively limited report regarding the implementation of online formative assessment using socio-cultural approaches within the under-represented ESP context. This study explores teachers’, students’, and program coordinators’ perspectives of their ESP teachers’ socio-cultural challenges in online formative assessment, future strategies, and prospects of promoting the socio-cultural approaches in online formative assessment. A mixed-methods using four dimensions of socio-cultural assessment questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were employed to draw three different groups of participants involving 118 ESP teachers, 367 students, and 14 program coordinators from 25 universities in the East Java Province, Indonesia. The questionnaires and interviews found that the three study participants reported similar high socio-cultural challenges in under- represented ESP teachers’ online formative assessment in the four dimensions. Different perceptions between ESP teachers and students, future strategies, and prospects of promoting socio-cultural approaches in the online assessment were comprehensively discussed in the study. Since this study did not rely much on the technological platforms applied during the online formative assessment, future researchers' recommendations were made to address the types of technologies and their effectiveness in implementing these socio-cultural approaches within different ESP settings.