Writing is hard for students who are learning English; they often find it challenging to transform what is on their mind in writing. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between the writing test and assessment writing through argumentative writing. Data was analyzed using the correlation test to determine the close relationship between…

In this work, we explore the use of digital technologies and statistical analysis to monitor how Italian secondary school students' writing changes over time and how comparisons can be made across different high school types. We analyzed more than 2,000 exam essays written by Italian high school students over 13 years and in five different school…

Comparative Judgement (CJ) has emerged as a technique that typically makes use of holistic judgement to assess difficult-to-specify constructs such as production (speaking and writing) in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL). In traditional approaches, markers assess candidates' work one-by-one in an absolute manner, assigning scores to different…

Although some assessment modes have proved successful, many learning problems encountered by low achieving learners need to be fixed by a more procedurally adequate remedial classroom assessment. Many EFL instructors adopt conventional and static modes of assessment rather than flexible and humanistic assessment modes. Hence, the study aims at…

Notwithstanding the introduction of education multilingual policies worldwide, testing and assessment procedures still rely almost exclusively on the monolingual construct. This paper describes a study, part of a larger project fostering a new multilingual education policy in Israeli schools, exploring bi/multilingual assessment. It included two…

Three groups of EFL freshman students were concurrently enrolled in a grammar and a writing course. One group was taught the grammar and writing courses by the same instructor; the other two groups were taught grammar and writing by two different instructors using the same textbook but different instructional and assessment techniques. The study…

This paper presents a method for equating writing assessments using pairwise comparisons which does not depend upon conventional common-person or common-item equating designs. Pairwise comparisons have been successfully applied in the assessment of open-ended tasks in English and other areas such as visual art and philosophy. In this paper,…

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…

The purposes of this study were to investigate the effects of the use of paper-based and weblog-based electronic portfolios on the writing achievement of limited English proficiency students, to survey the students' attitudes towards the use of the portfolio assessment, and to compare the viewpoints of the students in the control and experimental…

This study examined the effects of marking method and rater experience on ESL (English as a Second Language) essay test scores and rater performance. Each of 31 novice and 29 experienced raters rated a sample of ESL essays both holistically and analytically. Essay scores were analysed using a multi-faceted Rasch model to compare test-takers'…

The study investigated the effects of the Cognitive Level and Quality Writing Assessment (CLAQWA) rubric on the cognitive skill and writing skill growth of college freshmen. The participants (n = 107) were enrolled in a composition course at a Midwestern state university. The nonequivalent control group design used quantitative analysis with…

This paper describes a study of the computer essay-scoring program BETSY. While the use of computers in rating written scripts has been criticised in some quarters for lacking transparency or lack of fit with how human raters rate written scripts, a number of essay rating programs are available commercially, many of which claim to offer comparable…

At Golden College (California), student writing samples are holistically scored by pairs of judges on a six-point scale. Judges are allowed to use plus and minus figures, thus converting the integer scale to a decimal scale of evaluation. In 1991, 499 writing samples written as part of the placement testing process for students in the Coast…

A sample of 15 eighth-grade Hispanic students in a bilingual classroom were used for a descriptive analysis of students' writing samples to compare their growth between pre- and post- writing samples in Spanish and English. This was accomplished by juxtaposing English and Spanish pre- and post-tests using the same holistic rubric developed by the…