This paper reports on a qualitative research study into the test-taking strategies employed in completing two picture prompt writing tasks--Situational Writing and Interpretational Writing in the Beijing Matriculation English Test. Think-aloud and retrospective interview protocols were collected from twelve Chinese students representing two key…

Educators often have to choose among different types of rating scales to assess second-language (L2) writing performance. There is little research, however, on how different rating scales affect rater performance. This study employed a mixed-method approach to investigate the effects of two different rating scales on EFL essay scores, rating…

The present study investigated the influence of word processing on the writing of students of English as a second language (ESL) and on writing assessment as well. Twenty-one adult Mandarin-Chinese speakers with advanced English proficiency living in Toronto participated in the study. Each participant wrote two comparable writing tasks under…