Traditionally, the teacher has been evaluated after instruction. This is called a formative test.
But a formative test about essays is rare, because of a deficiency allocated time. The purpose
of this study was to explore the effects of method in an essay formative test on student
achievement and motivation (self-esteem, intrinsic-value, anxiety) in Social Studies. To
accomplish this purpose, 6 secondary teachers, 193 students(in six classes) were surveyed. The
instrument for the study was the Cooperative Essaying Formative Test(CEFT) based Slavin'
Jigsaw model and Individual Essaying Formative Test (IEFT) based Keller's PSI (Personalized
Systems of Instruction).
The results can be summarized as follows.
First, as cognitive domain, statistically significant differences were found between the
experimental group and control group on the essay achievement, but not within the
experimental group. Second, as affective domain, statistically significant differences were found
between the experimental group and control group. Particularly, the high class (upper level of
the achievement mean) is more than self-efficacy and intrinsic value, but the lower class (under
level of achievement mean) is more than test-anxiety
Reviewing as result of this study, It is very important that teachers teach essay or descriptive
test to students in instruction, that by correcting their mistakes, students can improve their test
scores and can take personal counseling for the treatment of their weaknesses. When a student
understands the pattern of fallacies in his essays or descriptive tests, and then becomes more
interested not only in social studies but also in instruction.