Washback Effect of Examination: A Case of Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking

Abstract

The present study entitled “Washback Effect of Examinations: A Case of Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking” was carried out to investigate the washback effect of exam. The course ‘Reading, Writing and Critical Thinking’ is one of the courses prescribed for B.Ed. 1st year majoring English. In order to collect the data, both the primary and secondary sources were used. For this process, I selected fifty students of B.Ed. 2nd year majoring English and ten teachers teaching the course in five different education campuses of the Kathmandu Valley. Moreover, the questions asked in the previous examinations (2066 and 2067) were collected and analyzed on the basis of the specified objectives in the course and finally, thirty classes were observed. Questionnaires were distributed to the selected students and teachers. After collecting the data and responses, they were analyzed and interpreted and then recommendations were put on the basis of the findings. The major findings of the study were: the teaching learning process was exam oriented, lecture method was widely used, previously asked questions encouraged the students to guess the future questions, teachers were not trained, instructional materials were not used in the classroom and evaluation system was not effective. The study is divided into four chapters. The first chapter consists of the background, quality of good test, introduction of the course, review of the related literature, objectives and significance of the study. The second chapter deals with the methodology adopted to carry out the research work. The third chapter presents the analysis and interpretation of the data. The last chapter includes the findings of the study and some important recommendations are made on the basis of the findings.