Features of Formative Assessment in Teaching English to Upper Secondary School Students: Results of an Empirical Study

The study aims to comprehensively investigate the characteristics, theoretical and methodological foundations, and practical implementation model of formative assessment in teaching English to upper-secondary students, with particular emphasis on systematically substantiating its metacognitive and motivational functions within Uzbekistan’s national educational context.
Key objectives include analysing the Prepare textbooks for Grades 10–11 in terms of formative assessment principles; developing systematic formative exercises and criterion-based assessment rubrics for listening, reading, writing, and speaking; comparing the effectiveness of different formative assessment techniques; and determining their impact on students’ communicative competence.
Conducted in 2024–2026, the empirical study involved 323 upper-secondary students from six general education schools in Samarkand, Jizzakh, and Kashkadarya regions. Experimental and control groups were compared through four research stages: diagnostic-prognostic, organisational-preparatory, practical, and generalising. Comparative analysis, pedagogical observation, and statistical methods were applied to evaluate the relative effectiveness of formative techniques across functional categories, including immediate reflection, visual-graphic, collaborative, self-assessment, analytical-critical, and game-based techniques.
Results showed that students in the experimental group achieved statistically significantly higher outcomes than those in the control group across all four language skills—reading, listening, speaking, and writing. Such findings confirm the consistent effectiveness of the formative assessment-based teaching model. A systematic set of formative exercises, a Speaking rubric, a Writing self-check sheet, and a multi-stage feedback system contributed to developing communicative competence through modelling authentic communicative situations.
Overall, formative assessment proved significantly more effective than traditional summative approaches in developing students’ communicative competence. Notably, the study is innovative in systematically testing and comparatively evaluating 40 formative assessment techniques within a unified methodological framework, providing evidence-based recommendations for improving English language teaching.