This study investigates washback effects on the learning portfolio of university students. The washback effects were explored using a questionnaire and interviews with two groups. The results were as follows. First, although learning portfolios have no effects on English learning purpose, other areas (English learning activities, language skills and language knowledge, and perception of assessment system) experienced partial washback effects. Second, there were significant changes and differentiation in each language skill(reading, writing and listening) and significant partial changes in English knowledge (vocabulary). Third, overall, learners preferred the traditional result-oriented assessment system to a process-oriented assessment system like a learning portfolio, despite that two groups have no differences in perception of assessment systems between the process-oriented assessment and product-oriented assessment system. Fourth, learners showed mixed opinions in the interviews: embarrassment from unfamiliar learning portfolio assessments and expectation of novelty. That is, although learners obtained their passive learning attitudes from the pre-existing instruction methods, they appreciated the merits and importance of learning portfolio assessment. Therefore, this study suggests that the washback effects of learning portfolio can be implemented for university students carefully.

The research on washback of a test has little been carried out in Korea while it has been flourishing in language testing researchers overseas. This paper investigates whether the advent of NEAT has affected the perception of test takers and the teaching/learning practices in English classrooms of Korea. In addition, we also want to investigate the relationship between variables such as perception of test users, teaching/learning practices, and test scores. We carried out a survey with 601 students who were seated at NEAT administered in April 2013 as well as 3,267 third-year high school students who had no experience on NEAT. The analyses revealed some evidence to support that NEAT has an effect on the perception of the participants. However, the analyses also revealed that NEAT was not effective to appeal for a change in teaching and learning practices in English classrooms in Korea.