SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1605368
The Influence of Humanistic Education on Tertiary English Teachers' Writing Assessment Practices: A Systematic Review
Provisionally accepted
Yumei Song*
Jayakaran Mukundan- Taylor's University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia
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Past decades have witnessed a growing emphasis on aligning assessment practices with humanistic education to foster student-centered learning in EFL writing instruction. However, existing research remains largely focused on traditional summative assessments, often neglecting the potential of formative approaches to enhance linguistic proficiency and learners' holistic development. The literature review is necessary as it addresses the growing need to align formative assessment with humanistic education principles in EFL writing instruction. It explores the transformation of assessment practices among tertiary English writing instructions through the integration of humanistic principles. Focusing on studies from 2014 to 2024, the review highlights a shift from traditional summative evaluation to formative, learner-centered approaches, such as dynamic assessment and self-assessment, which enhance writing proficiency, self-regulation, and emotional well-being. Despite these benefits, challenges persist in reducing reliance on summative assessments and in bolstering teacher training. This review adopts a humanistic education framework to offer a distinct perspective beyond conventional formative assessment literature. By synthesizing empirical studies on tertiary EFL writing assessment, it emphasizes how teachers conceptualize and apply principles such as empathy, learner autonomy, and growth-oriented feedback. Unlike previous reviews centered on assessment methods or teacher cognition, this study reframes assessment as an inherently emotional, relational, and developmental practice, calling for frameworks that support holistic student growth.
Keywords: humanistic assessment, formative assessment, tertiary EFL writing, teacher perceptions, assessment practices humanistic assessment, Assessment practices
Received: 03 Apr 2025; Accepted: 16 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Song and Mukundan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yumei Song, Taylor's University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia
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