A growing body of literature in second-language writing suggests that the writing ability of international second language (L2) learners, who attend post-secondary education abroad after having completed high school in their home countries, and the so-called Generation 1.5 population, that is, L2 learners who enter post-secondary education after…

We compared three assessor types (self-assessors, peer-assessors, and teacher assessors) to determine whether they differed in the levels of severity they exercised when rating essays. We analyzed the ratings of 194 assessors who evaluated 188 essays that students enrolled in two state-run universities in Iran wrote. The assessors employed a…

Automated Essay Scoring (AES) has garnered a great deal of attention from the rhetoric and composition/writing studies community since the Educational Testing Service began using e-rater[R] and the "Criterion"[R] Online Writing Evaluation Service as products in scoring writing tests, and most of the responses have been negative. While the…

In this paper, I describe the design and evaluation of automated essay scoring (AES) models for an institution's writing placement program. Information was gathered on admitted student writing performance at a science and technology research university in the northeastern United States. Under timed conditions, first-year students (N = 879) were…

Raters of Georgia's (USA) state-mandated college-level writing exam, which is intended to ensure a minimal university-level writing competency, are trained to grade holistically when assessing these exams. A guiding principle in holistic grading is to not focus exclusively on any one aspect of writing but rather to give equal weight to style,…

Using generalizability (G-) theory, this study examined the accuracy and validity of the writing scores assigned to secondary school ESL students in the provincial English examinations in Canada. The major research question that guided this study was: Are there any differences between the accuracy and construct validity of the analytic scores…

This study investigated the comparability of paper and computer versions of a functional writing assessment administered to adults 16 and older. Three writing tasks were administered in both paper and computer modes to volunteers in the field test of an assessment of adult literacy in 2008. One set of analyses examined mode effects on scoring by…

This paper reports on a quasi-experimental study comparing the effects of peer-editing to self-editing on improving students' revised drafts. The study involved two intact classes (experimental and control groups) of an English course. The experimental group practiced peer-editing while the control group engaged in self-editing. After receiving…

Despite the availability of practitioner advice on the characteristics of a literature review, students often report that they are unclear about what content should be included and how it can be most effectively organised. To assist them, some institutions provide courses that are specially tailored to the writing of thesis part-genres but very…

In high-stakes writing assessments, rater training in the use of a rating scale does not eliminate variability in grade attribution. This realisation has been accompanied by research that explores possible sources of rater variability, such as rater background or rating scale type. However, there has been little consideration thus far of…

Existing comparative studies between peer and teacher feedback in English writing classes have predominantly used frequency measures of peer and teacher feedback in learners' revisions to suggest their relative values for developing learners' writing proficiency. However, learners do not necessarily understand the feedback that is used in their…

Current concerns about academic plagiarism in student writing assume qualitative and quantitative differences in the writing of students for whom English is a first language (EL1) and English is a second language (EL2), but lack precision in measuring those differences. I examined the citation practices of EL1 and EL2 students in a timed writing…

Using generalizability theory, this study examined both the rating variability and reliability of ESL students' writing in the provincial English examinations in Canada. Three years' data were used in order to complete the analyses and examine the stability of the results. The major research question that guided this study was: Are there any…

The category of coherence in rating scales has often been criticized for being vague. Typical descriptors might describe students' writing as having 'a clear progression of ideas' or "lacking logical sequencing." These descriptors inevitably require subjective interpretation on the side of the raters. A number of researchers (Connor & Farmer,…

This article presents the first results of the study of argumentative essays in English as a foreign language and in Spanish as a foreign language and as a native language, carried out at Radboud University Nijmegen (formerly the University of Nijmegen) between 2002 and 2008. The aim of the project is to compare teachers' holistic assessments with…