International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 2; March 2015 Copyright © Australian International Academic Centre, Australia On the Effect of Online Formative Assessment on Iranian Lower Intermediate EFL Learners Reading Comprehension Farideh Peyghambarian (Corresponding author) English Department, Islamic Azad University, Torbat –e Heydarieh branch , Iran E-mail: faridehpeyghambarian@yahoo.com Mohammad Ali Fatemi English Department, Islamic Azad University, Torbat –e Heydarieh branch, Iran E-mail: matorbat@gmail.com Hamid Ashraf English Department, Islamic AzadUniversity, Torbat –e Heydarieh branch, Iran E-mails: maeltiau@gmail.com Received: 16-08-2014 Accepted: 30-10-2014 Published: 01-03-2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.2p.189 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.2p.189 Abstract Online Formative Assessment (OFA) improves EFL students' reading comprehension enabling them to have a better performance in reading comprehension tests. To lend support to the above mentioned claim, a quasi-experimental study was conducted in Mashhad, Iran. 48 female lower intermediate EFL students took part in this study. Participants were assigned to control and treatment groups. Participants in both groups received a formative assessment program lasting for 10 sessions. Formative assessment in treatment group was conducted by the site itself, and participants in control group were assessed by the teacher. It was found that participants in treatment group significantly outperformed those in control group. This finding indicated OFA as an effective learning tool in EFL reading comprehension classrooms. Keywords: online formative assessment, Reading comprehension, EFL intermediate learners 1. Introduction English as foreign language (EFL) students need to be assessed so that their teachers can realize their strengths and weaknesses. There exist two kinds of assessments in EFL literature, namely formative and summative, which are commonly employed by EFL teachers. Summative assessment (SA), known as assessment of learning, requires some form of grading or ranking of students’ abilities or achievements related to goals. Formative assessment (FA), on the other hand, is called assessment for learning; FA is about what teachers and students can do to document the students’ learning so that they can utilize this information to enhance their learning process(Douglas,2010, as cited in Lindqvist & Shuja, 2013). FA is process-based, and is used to assess students’ learning in the classroom usually in order to keep records of their achievement overtime (Harris, 2007). FA is a common classroom procedure which emphasizes upon the learning process and it is by nature diagnostic, remedial, regulatory, ongoing, self-regulating, timely and accurate (Cizek, 2010). FA occurs when teachers help their students understand their own learning in ways enabling them to learn better, design their learning process by doing something with the information conveyed to them in a comprehensible language (Restrepo, 2012). Given the benefits of OFA, the present study aims at investigating the effect of online formative assessment (OFA) on the development of Iranian lower intermediate EFL learners' reading comprehension. 2. Review of Literature Rakhyoot and Weir (n.d.) in article" On-Line Formative Assessments" introduced a modern model of FA based on internet to investigate the effect of on-line formative assessment (OFA) and feedback in the setting of an EFL course for postgraduate students at the University of Strathclyde. It was found that the participants in OFA1 (OFA with in-question feedback) group outperformed those in the control group in the post-test; (2) OFA1 and OFA2 (OFA without any in-question feedback) groups that interacted with the on- line facility outperformed the control group that had no interaction with the system; (3) OFA1 group that interacted with OFA with the added in-question feedback features outperformed OFA2 group who employed the OFA version but without feedback. In addition, participants in OFA1 displayed more positive responses on the influence of the OFA in improving English grammar, and vocabulary skills. The employment of penalties as part of the feedback to encourage quiz reattempts was confirmed by both OFA1 and OFA2 students.