New 40-item scale captures how EFL teachers perceive learning-oriented assessment

Researchers have developed and validated a new questionnaire designed to measure how English language teachers perceive learning-oriented assessment, an approach that places student learning at the center of classroom assessment. The instrument, called the Learning-Oriented Assessment Teacher Perception Scale (LOATPS), was created by Masoomeh Estaji and Maryam Kogani and published in the Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education. The study addresses a long-standing gap in the field: while learning-oriented assessment has attracted growing scholarly attention, no standardized, psychometrically validated tool previously existed to quantify teachers’ perceptions of it.

Learning-oriented assessment, often abbreviated as LOA, is grounded in the idea that assessment should not merely evaluate performance but should actively feed back into instruction. The concept was first conceptualized by Purpura in 2004 as a systematic aggregation of performance-driven evidence that feeds back into teaching practices, and it was later expanded by Carless and colleagues, who emphasized rigorous classroom assessment that supports learning objectives by integrating assessment performance more fully into classroom pedagogies. A major premise of LOA is to place learning at the forefront when exploring the connections among instruction, assessment, and learning. Importantly, the approach can be implemented in both formative and summative assessment contexts, as long as the primary aim is to enhance student learning. Researchers have also noted that LOA should not be confused with, nor is it in competition with, alternative assessment techniques such as dynamic and diagnostic assessment, notwithstanding their commonalities.

Previous research on LOA has been predominantly qualitative. Studies have interviewed teachers about their beliefs and classroom practices, revealing that teachers often perceive LOA as a feedback-oriented, formative approach that increases classroom participation and promotes student engagement. For example, a qualitative study of 40 Iranian EFL teachers using semi-structured interviews documented these perceptions, while other interview-based research identified institutional, teacher-related, and learner-related challenges in implementing LOA, including the need for effective curriculum coordination. However, as the authors of the new study note, these qualitative efforts have not offered a standardized quantitative instrument, which limits the ability to conduct large-scale or comparative studies and to examine statistical relationships between LOA perceptions and other constructs.

To build the new scale, the researchers began with a careful review of the LOA literature to generate theoretically grounded items, complemented by interviews with five PhD-holding experts in TEFL. The interviews, conducted via Zoom with ten open-ended questions covering item clarity, theoretical relevance, and construct coverage, each lasted about 30 to 45 minutes. The experts suggested minor wording revisions, recommended merging overlapping statements, and proposed adding new items reflecting teachers’ use of feedback, peer and self-assessment, and classroom interaction. They also supported grouping the items into three overarching dimensions: teachers’ LOA knowledge, beliefs, and practices. Each item was aligned with the three key components of LOA proposed by Carless in 2007: engaging tasks that promote effective learning, active student engagement in the process, and constructive feedback and feedforward to enhance future learning. A panel of five language assessment experts then checked the initial version, and several items were eliminated to improve content validity.

The revised scale was pilot tested with 50 EFL teachers to gauge its clarity, readability, and completion time, and minor revisions followed. The main data collection then unfolded in two phases. In the exploratory phase, the scale was administered electronically via Google Form to 180 EFL teachers, 42 of them novice and 138 experienced, in order to determine the underlying structure of the instrument. In the second phase, the refined questionnaire went to a new group of 228 teachers, 65 novice and 163 experienced, to validate the factor structure found in the exploratory factor analysis. Across both phases, the full sample ultimately comprised 408 Iranian EFL teachers, 107 novice and 301 experienced, drawn through convenience sampling from diverse institutional settings across Iran. The participants included 95 male and 313 female teachers, with teaching experience ranging from less than two years to more than fifteen, and educational backgrounds spanning diplomas to doctorates, with most majoring in TEFL.

The psychometric analysis proceeded in three steps: principal component analysis to identify potential cross-loadings, exploratory factor analysis to examine the latent factor structure, and confirmatory factor analysis to test the fit of the resulting model. In the exploratory phase, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy reached 0.883, well above the 0.6 cut-off, and Bartlett’s test was significant. Initial extraction produced eleven factors with eigenvalues above one, accounting for 67.798 percent of the total variance, but the pattern was not clear, so the researchers used parallel analysis and the scree plot to fix the solution at five factors. Ten items failed to achieve loadings above 0.4 and were discarded because they endangered convergent validity, and one item showed complex characteristics, loading onto two components, and was also removed, leaving 42 items.

In the confirmatory phase, all remaining items loaded significantly onto their corresponding factors, but two items with standardized loadings below 0.5 were discarded, producing the final 40-item questionnaire. The model’s goodness of fit was assessed with several indices: the CMIN/DF value of 1.667 falls in the excellent range, the RMSEA of 0.054 indicates a small difference between the observed and model-implied covariance matrices, the CFI and TLI both exceeded 0.9, and the SRMR of 0.061 also showed excellent fit. Reliability was confirmed with composite reliability values ranging from 0.766 to 0.918, all surpassing the 0.70 threshold, and maximum reliability values were high. Average variance extracted ranged from roughly 40 to 50 percent of variance explained by the components, and the Fornell-Larcker criterion, with the square root of AVE safely above the correlations among components, confirmed discriminant validity.

The five factors that emerged give the scale its structure and its interpretive value. The first component is teachers’ LOA knowledge, covering understanding of assessment principles and how learning and assessment can be integrated; a sample item reads, “I know how to integrate learning and assessment into L2 classes.” The second is teachers’ LOA beliefs. The remaining three are practice-oriented: teachers’ practices of feedback and interaction, teachers’ practices of using a variety of assessments, and teachers’ practices of sharing with others. The final instrument consists of 40 items rated on a five-point Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, with higher scores representing stronger endorsement of, or greater self-reported engagement with, LOA principles and practices. The authors argue that the emergence of five distinct but interdependent elements shows that teachers’ perceptions of LOA are not a one-dimensional construct nor limited to a binary of knowledge versus practice, but rather constitute a multidimensional disposition with cognitive, affective, and social dimensions.

The discussion highlights several notable interpretive points. The knowledge component resonates with Turner and Purpura’s multidimensional model of LOA, which underscores the importance of teachers’ understanding of the interplay between assessment and learning processes. The validated clustering of belief items into a coherent factor suggests that teachers’ conceptual challenges are not scattered or incidental but constitute a systematic belief structure, in contrast to the fragmented themes that emerged from earlier qualitative interviews. The authors also reflect on discarded items, noting that despite their theoretical significance, items concerning formative assessment and informing instructional decisions failed to meet the loading threshold. They attribute this to the idealized nature of these concepts within the Iranian EFL context, where practical constraints such as rigid curriculum requirements and the washback effect of high-stakes exams may create a discrepancy between teachers’ general perceptions and their actual classroom realities.

The practical implications extend to teacher education and research. The authors suggest that the LOATPS can serve as a practical tool for teacher educators designing professional development programs, and for EFL teachers and assessment scholars seeking to raise awareness of implementing LOA and its underlying components across diverse instructional settings. Researchers can use the scale to investigate teachers’ perceptions on a broader scale, compare different groups of teachers, and explore how LOA relates to other constructs such as instructional practices and teacher expertise, relations that have been hypothesized theoretically but not yet empirically investigated. The instrument can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of LOA-related professional development programs and to monitor changes in teachers’ perceptions over time. As with any validation study, the findings reflect the specific sample of Iranian EFL teachers surveyed, and the authors note that the datasets generated and analyzed are available from the author on reasonable request.

Subject of Research: Development and validation of a scale measuring EFL teachers' perceptions of learning-oriented assessment

Article Title: Deconstructing the constructs of learning-oriented assessment (LOA) from teachers’ perspectives: a scale development and validation study

Article References: Estaji, M., & Kogani, M. (2026). Deconstructing the constructs of learning-oriented assessment (LOA) from teachers’ perspectives: a scale development and validation study. Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 11(1), Article 83. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40862-026-00456-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40862-026-00456-y

Keywords: learning-oriented assessment, scale development, EFL teachers, psychometrics, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, teacher perceptions, language assessment, Iran, teacher education, validity, reliability