Integrated tasks are currently employed in a number of L2 exams since they are perceived as an addition to the writing-only task type. Given this trend, the current study investigates composite score generalizability of both reading-to-write and writing-only tasks. For this purpose, a multivariate generalizability analysis is used to investigate…

This paper reports on the feedback and assessment practices of Canadian grades 4-8 teachers; the data are drawn from a national study of the teaching of writing at the middle grades in all ten Canadian provinces and two (of three) territories. Respondents were 216 grades 4-8 teachers from rural and urban schools. Data sources were audio-recorded…

Traditionally, feedback to writing is written on drafts or given orally in roving or more formal conferences and is considered a significant part of instruction. This paper locates written response within an assessment for learning framework in the writing classroom. Within this framework, quality of response was defined in terms of providing…

This article considers the claim that machine scoring of writing test responses agrees with human readers as much as humans agree with other humans. These claims about the reliability of machine scoring of writing are usually based on specific and constrained writing tasks, and there is reason for asking whether machine scoring of writing requires…

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…

This experimental project investigated the reliability and validity of rubrics in assessment of students' written responses to a social science "writing prompt". The participants were asked to grade one of the two samples of writing assuming it was written by a graduate student. In fact both samples were prepared by the authors. The first sample…

We present some key findings of a four-year, two-phase writing assessment project at Central Michigan University: Phase One (2002), a survey of faculty members (n=115) and subsequent focus groups (n=14) and Phase Two (2005), an evaluation of two samples of student writing (n=635 and 632). Major findings of Phase One reported here include the…

Testing the hypotheses that reflective timed-essay prompts should elicit memories of meaningful experiences in students' undergraduate education, and that computer-mediated classroom experiences should be salient among those memories, a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods paints a richer, more complex picture than either…

It is widely assumed that the constraints of timed essay exams will make it virtually impossible for students to engage in the major hallmarks of the writing process, especially revision, in testing situations. This paper presents the results of a study conducted at Washington State University in the Spring of 2008. The study examined the…

Establishing the score or the placement as the first priority in a writing assessment leads to more reductive forms of writing assessment. However, if the prompts used in a direct test of writing were generative--that is, if they asked test-takers to analyze their own experiences as writers or learners, for example--the resulting texts would be…

This is the story of a research journey that follows the trail of a novel evaluand--"place." I examine place as mentioned by rising juniors in timed exams. Using a hybridized methodology--the qualitative approach of a hermeneutic dialectic process as described by Guba and Lincoln (1989), and the quantitative evidence of place mention--I query…

Large-scale writing programs can add value to the traditional timed writing assessment by using aspects of the essays to assess the effectiveness of institutional goals, programs, and curriculums. The "six learning goals" prompt in this study represents an attempt to provide an accurate writing assessment that moves beyond scores. This paper…

College and university instructors who assess student writing, including but not limited to teachers of first-year composition, sometimes keep the gate. Gatekeeping by writing instructors is an activity directly related to grading practices and, in many cases, to grading practices which emphasize formal, mechanical, usually sentence-level choices…

The demand for valid and reliable methods of assessing second and foreign language writing has grown in significance in recent years. One such method is the timed writing test which has a central place in many testing contexts internationally. The reliability of this test method is heavily influenced by the scoring procedures, including the rating…

This paper reports the effects of the properties of source texts on summarization. One hundred and fifty-seven undergraduates were asked to write summaries of one of three extended English texts of similar length and readability, but differing in other discoursal features such as lexical diversity and macro-organization. The effects of…