Using self-formative evaluation to improve academic writing skills

This study investigates the effectiveness of using self-formative evaluation to improve academic writing skills. The objective of the study is to monitor the progress of the students and to help the students to identify their strengths and weaknesses in writing. Poor academic writing skills will demotivate the students to write. This study utilised a quantitative analysis involving twenty-five Language Centre students from the English for Academic Writing (LLE 3012) class at the National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM). The teaching and learning process look place till the seventh week and the students were taught all the necessary lessons on academic writing skills. After week seven the students were given a task to write an academic essay in class. After submitting their academic essay, the students need to evaluate themselves using the questionnaire on their performance. Later, the leaching and learning process continued, focusing on the area in which they were weak. At the end of the fourteenth week, the students were given another writing task and the same questionnaire. Directive feedback was also given where necessary in week seven. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics generated from the SPSS. It was found that the mean for the first self-formative evaluation was lower compared to the mean of the second self-formative evaluation. In week seven, the students were weak in referencing. The lecturer focused more on the referencing topic, and by week fourteen, the mean for the referencing evaluation was higher than in week seven. This indicates that using the self-formative evaluation aids the teaching and learning process.