Students in Blended Learning: Their Preference of Assessment in English Courses

Blended learning has become persistent in higher educational institutions in the Philippines several years after the pandemic happened. With this modality of learning as an option when situations emerge where face-to-face meetings are not possible, the concern among teachers and students alike is how the assessment is implemented. In this study, the researchers aimed to determine the preference of students taking English courses among the assessment tools categorized as traditional and alternative assessments. Their actual scores (performance) in both traditional and alternative assessments were compared to their scores in the questionnaire (preference). Using mean and standard deviation, the preference on assessment tools and the actual scores using these assessment tools were gathered. It appears that the students prefer both traditional and alternative assessments. However, they highly prefer alternative assessment tools such as portfolio and performance tests. It was also revealed that their actual scores in the tests using both traditional and alternative assessments are high. Using Spearman’s rho, the relationship between students’ preference and performance with both alternative and traditional assessment were tested. It was found that students do not have a general preference for the type of tests. There was no relationship found between their preference of traditional assessment tools and their actual scores; however, a significant relationship was found between their preference of alternative assessment and actual scores.