Socrative as Online Formative Assessment to Foster Reading Comprehension

The use of technology in education plays a vital role in language assessment. The change in educational adjustment during the COVID-19 period requires teachers to use technology in learning. The teachers need to know the effect of students' achievement and students' perceptions in using online assessment tools. This research aimed to investigate the students' improvement of reading comprehension and students' perception of Socrative as an online formative assessment. This study applied a quasi-experimental design and a closed questionnaire to collect data. Two classes consisted of 32 students (16 students in the control class; 16 students in the experimental class) who participated in this study in SMA Negeri 1 Cepiring, Central Java, Indonesia. The collected data were then analyzed quantitatively using SPSS 23. The result showed that Socrative effectively improves the students' reading comprehension. Socrative is effective as an alternative online formative assessment in improving the students' reading comprehension compared to the paper-based formative assessment. Another result revealed positive perceptions of Socrative as an online formative assessment for enhancing students' reading comprehension. They claimed that Socrative brings a new atmosphere and innovative formative assessment process that helps improve students' reading comprehension. For facts, Socrative can be considered an innovative and effective online formative assessment worth applying by English teachers or educators.


Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic was an occurrence that changed educational adjustment from faceto-face to online learning. Due to the decrease in COVID-19 cases, education regulations have changed to blended learning, which combines online and face-to-face learning (Bahasoan et al., 2020). That was a challenge to create a new experience for teachers and students. Prastikawati (2021) explained that these regulations are the only way educators interact with students. Indeed, the change was necessary for educational institutions to implement the adjustment.
The change in educational adjustment during the COVID-19 period requires teachers to use technology in learning. Technology in teaching and English learning has been effective because of material, learning process, and assessment (Gunuç & Babacan, 2018;Mulyadi et al., 2021). Furthermore, technological advances in online learning impact convenience, workability, and quick adaptability for students. The teachers should adjust the teaching technique so that the students are not bored with online learning. Except for the adjustment, teaching media, and teaching technique, the teacher must also consider the changes in their assessment process, especially in formative assessment.
Technology-based formative assessment was helpful for online and blended English Language Teaching. Elmahdi et al., (2018) argued that technology-based formative assessment effectively requires consistent and routine training to find the difficulties encountered and the knowledge gained from learning. Technology-based formative assessment monitors how students accept the teachers' explanations during the learning process. Moreover, it aims to provide feedback to teachers and students used for the teaching process and monitor difficulty in English language learning in a fast way (Widiastuti & Saukah, 2017). For those points, technology-based formative assessment creates beneficial input for both teacher and students during teaching ad learning. furthermore, teachers' understanding of technology-based formative assessment may improves students' enthusiasm for English learning. The way the teachers present technology in formative assessment leads the students to a insightful learning situation so that the students gain their motivation in having an assessment.
One of the primary skills in the English language is reading. According to (Erya & Pustika, 2021), reading has a crucial role in everyday life, and people can read texts to increase their knowledge. Also, reading was essential for students because it was implemented when students learned English in school. Reading helps gain comprehension through reading text. The importance of reading comprehension, which can assist students in finding information about the subject matter in school, general knowledge, and improve students' writing skills (Asrifan et al., 2018;Sari et al., 2020;Soto et al., 2019) explained that reading comprehension and public reading were essential skills to develop students' thinking skills and personalities in society. Moreover, the writers often found reading comprehension in English exams, school exams, and college entrance exams. Such as TOEFL, IELTS, TOEIC, SBMPTN, and others.
According to the facts mentioned above, students reading comprehension must be wellimproved with the help of English teachers. Furthermore, Wibowo et al. (2020) argued that teachers could use various teaching strategies to implement reading comprehension. Besides, the increase in students' reading comprehension was influenced by the assessment that monitors students' progress toward the material provided by the teacher (Kristiyanti, 2021). Formative assessment could be applied in online quizzes and detect what students need during learning. In addition, the teachers could observe the students' reading comprehension through online quizzes. One of the applications used in online education, mainly formative assessment, was Socrative.
Socrative as a formative assessment tool, was a functional website to measure the level of knowledge, online skills, and students' progress (Romero et al., 2021). Some studies have showed that the use of Socrative changed the students' perception toward assessment. the features of Socrative brought new assessment athmosphere (Suryani & Fauziati, 2022). There were features on the Socrative App such as Quiz, Quick Question, Exit Ticket and Space Race. With the online quiz application, the teacher can create questions and answers that was distributed to students. Various responses include multiple-choice, short answer, or true/false choices. The use of Socrative applications could be used in English language learning.
This study focuses on Socrative as an online formative assessment to improve the students reading comprehension achievement, especially in SMA N 1 Cepiring. The writers chose SMA N 1 Cepiring to investigate because it was conducted when the writers did internship 3. SMA N 1 Cepiring has not implemented an online learning application as an online formative assessment tool. Furthermore, the writers use Socrative in the classroom because technology has a vital role in learning. In this case, the writers tried improving reading comprehension in online learning.
Based on the background of the study above, the writers compile several problem formulations as follows: 1. How is the reading comprehension achievement of students exposed by traditional formative assessment? 2. How is the reading comprehension achievement of students Socrative exposes as an online formative assessment? 3. Is Socrative effective in fostering the student's reading comprehension? 4. What is students' perception on Socrative as an online formative assessment?

Method
This present study carried out a quasi-experimental research design by utilizing pre-test and post-test. The participants of this study are the students in SMA N 1 Cepiring. Purposive random sampling was chosen as the sampling technique in plotting a control class (XI A) and an experimental class (XI B). Table 1 presents the total amount of thirty-two students in this study. In the control class, traditional formative assessment was carried out. The traditional one in this study refers to non-technology-based formative assessments. Kind of formative assessment in the control class was direct question and answer during the teaching and learning process. On the other hand, in the experimental class Socrative was exposed as the technology-based formative assessment.
In collecting the data, an adopted reading test was chosen as the main instrument of this study. Before this instrument was given in both classes, the writers piloted a try-out to testify its validity. The result of validity showed that the correlation value was higher than 0.2560 for all items in the reading test. This means that the reading test items are valid to use as the instrument. To see the reliability of this instrument, the reading test items were tested by using Cronbach alpha. After the measurement, Cronbach alpha value mentioned 0.823 indicating that the test items are reliable.
Furthermore, this study also used closed-questionnaire as the supporting instrument. The content validity of this questionnaire was examined by two educators. Those two educators are English Department in Universitas PGRI Semarang. The feedback from them was used by the writers to revise the content of questionnaire. After some revision was made, the two educators checked the questionnaire and gave approval on it to be used. To add, the questionnaire was also measured its reliability. The Cronbach alpha values showed 0.901 as it had high reliability. The valid closed questionnaire includes eleven questions for students.

1.
Socrative is practical and efficient in online learning, especially in reading sessions.

2.
Socrative is an excellent interactive learning media.

3.
Socrative's display is helpful in learning reading.

4.
Socrative makes it easier to do reading tasks.

6.
Socrative improves students become active in the reading process.

7.
Socrative supports critical thinking of students' learning 8. Socrative builds on students' learning performance, especially in reading.

10.
Socrative is a learning application that is very user-friendly and easily accessible.

11.
Socrative brings a new atmosphere in supporting the students to improve their reading comprehension.
According to table 2, the closed-questionnaire consists of 5 (five) rating scales to determine whether the category is strongly agreed to disagree strongly. After collecting data, the writers analyze the reading test to assess their reading comprehension and students' perception of Socrative. The analysis was carried out for classes taught using Socrative as an online formative assessment as well as for classes with the conventional evaluation. In this research, there were several data to be analyzed by following steps: 1. Analyzing on students' reading pre-test and post-test through SPSS 23. After the required data was collected, the writers analyzed the data to obtain the mean pre-test and post-test scores from the experimental and control groups. These mean scores were then classified into some criteria the writers modified by Yunista et al. (2022) as follow: 2. Analyzing the significant differences between students' reading tests using traditional formative assessment and Socrative as an online formative assessment, calculated using SPSS 23.
3. Analyzing the data gained from a closed questionnaire about the students' perceptions.
After the data is collected, the data was analyzed using SPSS 23 in the form of Mean (M) and Standardized Deviation (SD).

Reading Comprehension Achievement of Students who Traditional Formative Assessment exposes
The first research problem was about how students' reading comprehension achievement using traditional formative assessment. The writers used the opportunity of four meetings to collect pre-test and post-test data from the control class using traditional formative assessment. In practice, students exposed to traditional formative assessment got questioned without direct questioning in the classroom and given some questions relating to the material without technology involvement.
This process was considered a commonly used method in formative assessment. Before its implementation, students were tested using a pre-test as a benchmark or indicator of reading comprehension achievement. The pre-test score of the control class are presented in table 5.

Students' Code
Students' Pre-Test Score

Scoring Categories
Mean Score 56.5 D Poor The mean score in the pre-test of the control class is 56.5, which is included in the poor category. Students still used traditional assessments in this test and have not received treatment. After the pre-test was given, students in the control group were taught with traditional formative assessment without any technology in four meetings. The first meeting introduced reading comprehension material; the second meeting conducted a pre-test on reading comprehension achievement as a benchmark for the material in the classroom. The third meeting showed the treatment to improve students' understanding. Students get a helpful treatment by explaining the material well and assessing its impact after the treatment. Last, the session did a post-test to test the student's abilities after the treatment.
Further, a post-test was given to investigate students' reading comprehension achievement. In addition, students were given a traditional formative assessment with direct 284 SALEE: Study of Applied Linguistics and English Education questioning that adjusted to the existing themes during teaching and learning. The pre-test score of the control class is presented in table 6. Mean Score 73 C Average The average post-test score for the control class is 73, which is categorized as the medium. This improvement has resulted from the application of traditional formative assessment. Traditional formative assessment meant formative assessment did not use technology in the implementation. Therefore, the writers used questioning to implement the traditional formative assessment.

Reading Comprehension Achievement of Students who Socrative exposes as an Online Formative Assessment
The operation of the web platform Socrative was conducted to determine whether it was a utility for students' reading comprehension. For that point, the writers implemented the Socratuve web platform during four meetings to teach and learn English skills, especially reading comprehension. In this case, this class was the experimental class because it used Socrative in practice, consisting of 16 students. Before students were exposed to using the Socrative web platform, students were given a pre-test of reading comprehension. The student's scores on the pre-test are shown in table 7. The average pre-test score for the experimental class is 55.7, which is included in the poor category. In this test, students use traditional formative assessment and have not received any treatment related to reading comprehension material. After the pre-test was given to students in the experimental class, who were taught using an online formative assessment for four meetings, the writers introduced reading comprehension material for the pre-test at the first meeting. In the second meeting, the writers conducted a pre-test for the students as an initial indicator of reading comprehension achievement. In the next meeting, the writers treated the specific material to enhance the conception used in the post-test. The last meeting implemented a post-test that contained the material explained during the treatment. The posttest was the final test where the expected results would exceed the pre-test because students had gone through many treatments that contained material on the reading comprehension test. Additionally, students were exposed to online formative assessment with indirect questioning through the Socrative web platform and asked several questions related to the material with the technology involved in teaching and learning. The student's scores on the post-test are shown in table 8. The average post-test score for the experimental class is 80.1, which score included in good category. In this test, students received treatment related to reading comprehension material and implemented the use of Socrative as an online formative assessment in their examination. Online formative assessment meant formative assessment did use technology in the implementation. Therefore, the writers used the Socrative web tool to implement the online formative assessment.

Significant Difference Between the Students' Reading Comprehension Achievement Exposed Using Socrative as an Online Formative Assessment and Those who were Exposed Using Traditional Formative Assessment
N-Gain measurement was firstly measured to see the significant effect of Socrative as an online formative assessment in the experimental class and direct questionning in the control class. According to the N-Gain measurement, the control class has an improvement of mean score in the amount of 0.2146 with a standard deviation (SD) of 0.60042, besides the gain of 286 SALEE: Study of Applied Linguistics and English Education mean score in the experimental class with the amount of 0.7318 with a standard deviation (SD) of 0.07999. It shows that the students exposed to using Socrative as an online formative assessment had a higher mean score than those using traditional formative assessment. Table 9. Descriptive Statistic of Hypothesis Testing The first in the control class, the results obtained based on the Wilcoxon signed-rank test using SPSS showed the Asymp value. Sig(2-tailed) is 0.000. Based on the criteria, a significant value of 5% indicates that the value obtained through the test is less than 5% (0.000 < 0.05). Therefore, Ho was rejected, and H1 was accepted, so it could be concluded that there was a significant difference in the average before and after the use of traditional assessment in English learning in the control class, which means that traditional assessment in English teaching and learning had a little bit affects improving reading comprehension.
In the second experimental class, the results obtained based on the Dependent T-test using SPSS showed the Asymp value. Sig (2-tailed) is 0.000. Based on the criteria, a significance value of 5% indicates that the value obtained through the test is less than 5% (0.000 < 0.05). Therefore, Ho was rejected, and H1 was accepted, so it can be concluded that there was a significant difference in the mean before and after the use of Socrative as an online formative assessment in the Experimental Class, which means that Socrative as an online formative assessment affected improving reading comprehension in English teaching and learning.
The third, based on the value of N Gain (increase), the results obtained based on the Mann-Whitney test using SPSS indicated the Asymp value. Sig (2-tailed) is 0.002. Based on the criteria, a significance value of 5% means that the value obtained through the test is less than 5% (0.002 < 0.05). Therefore, Ho was rejected, and H1 was accepted, so it can be concluded that there was a significant difference in the use of traditional assessment in English learning in the control class with Socrative as an online formative assessment in the experimental class. The value of the experimental class is higher than the value of the control class, so the use of Socrative as an online formative assessment was more effective in improving reading comprehension in English than traditional formative assessment in English teaching and learning.

Students' Perception on Using Socrative as an Online Formative Assessment
A closed questionnaire was given to the students to complete related to students' perception of using Socrative as an online formative assessment. In providing a closed questionnaire, the writers permitted participants to choose an answer on a five scale of agreement and disagreement with various statements about some perspective. In addition, data from the closed questionnaire was analyzed by looking at the percentage of the table that was effortless to understand. Some excerpt from structured closed-questionnaires are presented by the writers as follows: Socrative is a learning application that is very userfriendly and easily accessible.

Q11
Socrative brings a new atmosphere in supporting the students to improve their reading comprehension.
12.5 81.3 6.3 -- Table 10 shows the results of student responses to the use of Socrative as an online formative assessment. The results showed that the majority of students responded positively. The result of Q1 showed that 81.3% of students believed that Socrative was a practical and efficient platform, especially for reading subjects. Another positive response in Q2 was that Socrative had a good feature for interacting in expressing student opinions for teachers or otherwise on learning. It is proven that there were 75% of students who chose agreed. The respondents' positive result in Q3 was that 87.5% of students think the Socrative display supports learning reading. This feature makes it easy for students and teachers to answer or arrange reading questions. More results on students' perception showed by Q4 that 87% of students agreed with that Socrative made the students easier to do reading tasks. But some (6.3%) of students were unsure about this, while only 6.3% disagreed that Socrative made the students easier to do reading.
Another reaction indicated in Q5 was that 75% of students agreed that Socrative has succeeded in improving students' reading comprehension. In contrast, the remaining 6.3% of students did not agree if Socrative impacted their reading effectiveness. In addition, the text reading uploaded in Socrative made students interested in reading, especially with the influence of the technology they use. A positive response also was shown in Q6 that most (75%) of students agreed that using Socrative could improve students' activity in the reading process. At the same time, the rest (6.3%) chose "Disagreed" that they were unfeeling to be active in the reading process and "Undecided" about this item. In Q7, it is clear that the highest reaction for students to use Socrative was students who agreed (87.5%) that using Socrative can support critical learning. Using Socrative, students could examine small parts or the whole of learning. Another positive result in Q8 was that 87.5% of students perceived that using Socrative builds on students' learning performance, especially in reading. Surprisingly, a student (6.3%) chose to "Disagree" that they supported the web tool Socrative on learning performance, mainly in reading.
In Q9, most respondents agreed (87.5%) or strongly agreed (6.3%) that the Socrative display is attractive. The attractive Socrative display means that Socrative is easy to understand for new users and enjoyable to use. Meanwhile, only a student (6.3%) disagreed with this case. The other result in Q10 showed that some students disagreed and were not sure (6.3%) that Socrative is a web learning tool that is very user-friendly and easily accessible. However, more than half of the students agreed (87.5%) that Socrative was easy to access and use. Amazingly, Q11 showed that no one disagreed that Socrative brings a new atmosphere in supporting the students to improve their reading comprehension. A student (6.3%) felt uncertain about it.
In contrast, most of the students, 15 overall or 93.8%, agreed that Socrative brings a new atmosphere in supporting the students to improve their reading comprehension. Socrative is an assessment tool involving technology in learning; it is unique and challenging for students. Besides, Socrative is important to support student learning performance to achieve maximum learning goals and increase reading comprehension.

Discussion
This study has shown four main findings: students' reading comprehension who were exposed to traditional formative assessment, students' reading comprehension who Socrative exposed as an online formative assessment, and the significant difference between the 290 SALEE: Study of Applied Linguistics and English Education students' reading comprehension revealed to traditional formative assessment and exposed by Socrative as online formative assessment, and the student's perception on Socrative as online formative assessment.
The first finding showed that the student's reading comprehension were exposed to traditional formative assessment. To collect the data, the writers conducted the pre-test and post-test of traditional formative assessment as a control class that the writers gave 50 multiple choices in the based-paper to 16 students control class. Then students answered the questions used in the traditional paper-based test. Students did a pre-test before receiving an explanation from the teacher. Before the post-test, the writers explained material about the whole reading comprehension. The students were allowed to ask directly.
Furthermore, the writers explained and asked questions directly to students and provided feedback on students' answers. This feedback provided benefits for students as an evaluation in the classroom. As a result of this case, the writers found that students' reading comprehension increased from the pre-test to the post-test in the control class, even if it was not statistically significant. The writers then explored this insignificant result. The writers found that the students felt that traditional formative assessment was monotonous. They could still interact directly with teachers and provide direct questions (Joyce, 2018). This condition was in line with Zhorova et al. (2022), mentioning that traditional formative assessment had several weaknesses: the students could not increase their creativity, got bored faster, and needed much time to understand the material.
In contrast, the writers found the advantages of the traditional formative assessment, such as practical implementation and easy-to-know student improvement (Kulasegaram & Rangachari, 2018). Practical implementation means students directly did pre-test and posttest on paper. Another advantage of traditional formative assessment was that it was easy to know the students' improvement, which means students only had one opportunity to do tests. Hence, the teachers knew the students' progress.
On the other hand, the second point of this study was about Socrative as an online formative assessment that was regarded by the students as a new atmosphere in the learning process, especially in reading. Socrative is an assessment tool that has more quality than paper-based assessments. The features of Socrative were not found in the traditional formative assessment, such as score display, instant feedback, space race time, and picture clue. As in the traditional formative assessment, the online formative assessment also conducts the pre-test and post-test. Before the post-test, the writers treated the experimental class through the Socrative web tool. By the Socrative web tool, the writers also gave 50 questions in the form of multiple-choice to students whose answers could not be seen by each other. At this point, the writers found that the increase in reading comprehension from pretest to post-test based on technology was significant compared to the effects of traditional formative assessments using paper-based. These results indicate that technology can encourage student achievement in the learning process. Supporting the result, Rofiah and Waluyo (2020) mention that Socrative, a mobile-based testing tool, can assist students' achievement on formative assessment. Another supported research by Kolisnyk et al. (2022) agreed that Socrative is a useful online formative assessment tool for students and teachers in English teaching and learning.
Several things that the results of the experimental group more significantly than the control group, such as students prefer learning to use smartphones or other devices. It is related to what was concluded in a study by Darko (2019) that students easily find an understanding of the material if they use technology in their learning activities. Then, students prefer new things for learning contained in the Socrative, such as answering questions quickly and accurately; they would get feedback after answering the question. It would be competitive because the Socrative instantly creates live rankings among students. Moreover, Socrative was also considered to support the students in saving paper in their learning process. So that students felt joyful and challenged when participating in the teaching and learning process.
Third, this study showed a significant difference in students' reading comprehension achievement between traditional formative assessment and Socrative as an online formative assessment. This case showed that students had improved reading comprehension using Socrative as an online formative assessment compared to students who used traditional assessment in English learning. Supported research by Cha (2018) that the use of Socrative by students showed a forward effect on interaction and reading activities in English. Based on Almusharraf and Khahro (2020) showed that the level of student motivation towards online learning is increasing, especially in the online platform used.
The writers' observations of the classroom learning process showed differences between the experimental and control classes. During the observation, the writers found that students in the control class were bored and less enthusiastic about participating in learning. This conditon had an impact on the results of post-tests conducted by students. While in the experimental class, students were more enthusiastic and understood faster because online learning is not monotonous, and the use of technology creates a new atmosphere for learning. Likewise, students tended to comprehend the text, and how they read was better. This can be seen from the results of the post-test they did. Based on this statement, the result could conclude that the learning method using Socrative as a formative assessment was efficient and supportive for students and teachers. Another supporting the result by Fatmawaty and Sholihah (2020) that Socrative was very constructive and efficient to be implemented, effortless to use (Rofiah & Waluyo, 2020) and the way option of formative assessment using an electronic tool (Robertson et al., 2019).
Fourth, the other result indicated the students' perception of using Socrative as an online formative assessment. Based on the closed questionnaire, more than 75% of respondents 292 SALEE: Study of Applied Linguistics and English Education stated that Socrative was interesting. They also agreed that Socrative could improve their learning performance. The students liked Socrative because it was a simple and good way to know students bring on an understanding of the material. This result was supported by Hakimah, (2020), that most respondents mentioned that they feel enjoyable and prefer to use Socrative to do tasks or assignments because Socrative is more accessible and helpful, making them more concerted.
Additionally, Socrative also creates the students to have a new ambiance of learning which supports them in improving their learning capacity. According to Mohamad et al. (2019), the combination of technology in the teaching and learning process was a principal in the attempt to improve students' performance and the effectiveness of teaching reading. By giving the students quizzes through Socrative, the writers would be able to know students' understanding so that the writers know the parts the students could not fully understand. Overall, Socrative is an effective formative assessment tool for English reading comprehension. However, undeniable that its use requires Wi-Fi or a stable internet connection.

Conclusion
According to the observation results and the measurement of findings, the writers conclude that Socrative was widely regarded as helpful, encouraging, and favorable as online formative assessment to improve students' reading comprehension. Before and after the experiment, students' opinions about mobile-based testing significantly shifted. Students' reports of benefits from mobile-based assessments greatly outweigh the few technological concerns teachers can quickly resolve. Therefore, Socrative is suggested for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors interested in using technology for formative assessment in the classroom due to its wide range of benefits. Unfortunately, this study cannot be generated to the larger samples. A future study comparing the perspectives of male and female students can shed further light on whether or not EFL students are prepared for mobile-based testing. Scientists of the future should also try out Socrative's other features that promote student participation in class discussions.