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Makale Özeti:
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Frequent testing in education has been a popular research topic since the
beginning of the 20th century, but it has rarely been discussed in the field of English as a
Foreign Language. The review of the literature illustrates that the studies done on
frequent testing in other fields mostly highlight the benefits of frequent testing while
some of the findings suggest several drawbacks. This paper aims to look into teachers’
and students’ perceptions of frequent testing in an EFL setting, at Middle East Technical
University, Northern Cyprus Campus, School of Foreign Languages' Preparatory
program. The data are collected with student and teacher questionnaires where the
respondents are expected to evaluate the given perception on a five-point Lickert scale
and interviews with volunteer teachers. The aim is to cross check the major conclusions
on the benefits and drawbacks of frequent testing with students’ and teachers’
perceptions of frequent quizzes to find whether those conclusions can be considered
valid in an EFL context. The results show that the teachers’ perceptions of frequent
quizzes at METU, NCC, SFL, Preparatory Program are in line with the literature, and
the respondent teachers do not have big problems with the frequency of quizzes as far as
their quality and effectiveness are assured. The students, on the other hand, admit that
frequent quizzes positively affect their learning and retention skills, but they do not
agree that frequent quizzes help with exam anxiety or make any contribution to their
attendance or study habits, and their performance.
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