The Effect of Portfolio Assessment on Students' Writing Performance

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of portfolio assessment on Iranian EFL students' writing Performance. To this aim, a group of forty four EFL learners were selected as the participants of the study. They took TOEFL test to make sure they were homogeneous. Then, they were divided into two groups randomly. The experimental group received portfolio assessment strategy and the control group received traditional assessment. This strategy was used to see if it helped students improve their writing performance. Portfolio assessment uses three main methods including collection, selection and reflection. At the beginning, teacher outlines the design, goal and procedure of the study. The participants received the treatment in the form of feedback, revising and redrafting. But the control group received the paper and pencil test. In the end, the students were given the writing section of the IELTS test to measure their writing performance. The results revealed that the students in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group proving the effectiveness of portfolio assessment on improving EFL students' writing performance.