Iranian Medical ESP Practitioners' Reading Comprehension Assessment Literacy: Perceptions and Practices

The current study investigated the language assessment literacy of two groups of Iranian medical ESP practitioners while teaching reading comprehension under formative assessment lens. To do so, 21 ESP instructors, 8 content and 13 ELT instructors, from five universities in Iran were recruited to participate in the study. A 40-item questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and non-participatory observations were employed by the researchers to collect the required data. The descriptive results of both quantitative and qualitative data indicated that the ELT and content teachers’ reading assessment performances were almost the same. The results also revealed that the content teachers had limited knowledge about formative classroom assessment (FCA). Although the ELT instructors were in broader agreement on the knowledge category, in practice, little trace of it was found. In terms of the principles, both the ELT and content instructors agreed that assessment principles were necessary for measuring students’ achievement. For the skill category, contrary to the content teachers, the ELT instructors were on the belief that this category was crucial; however, they did not implement it in their assessment activities.