This paper examines the construct measured by automated essay scoring (AES) systems. AES systems measure features of the text structure, linguistic structure, and conventional print form of essays; as such, the systems primarily measure text production skills. In the current state-of-the-art, AES provide little direct evidence about such matters…

The present paper argues the use of "narratives" as the most appropriate evaluation method in cases of atypical language production. Narrative as a genre has an ecological validity that other genres used in language research and evaluation do not have. Narratives develop naturally from very early, they are independent of education and academic…