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Writing Ability Assessment Guidelines

To write effective tests, three criteria must be met: 1. Tasks must represent what students are expected to be able to do. 2. Tasks must elicit valid writing samples that reflect students' true abilities. 3. Scoring rubrics and procedures must ensure samples are reliably assessed.

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Areli Reyes
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11 views5 pages

Writing Ability Assessment Guidelines

To write effective tests, three criteria must be met: 1. Tasks must represent what students are expected to be able to do. 2. Tasks must elicit valid writing samples that reflect students' true abilities. 3. Scoring rubrics and procedures must ensure samples are reliably assessed.

Uploaded by

Areli Reyes
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Testing problem for writing

1. We have to set tasks that are properly


representative of the population of tasks that we
should expect the students to be able to perform.
2. The tasks should elicit valid samples of writing
(which truly represent the student’s ability)
3. It is essential that the samples of writing can and
will be scored reliably.
Representative tasks

i) Specify all possible content (operations, types


of text, addressees, length of texts, topics, dialect and
style)
ii) Include a representative sample of the
specified content: try to select a representative set
of tasks. The more tasks (within reason) that we set,
the more representative of a candidate’s ability (the
more valid). If a test includes a wide ranging and
representative sample of specifications, the test is
more likely to have a beneficial backwash effect.
Elicit a valid sample of writing ability

Set as many separate tasks as is feasible:


Candidates performance on a task or different tasks can’t
be always consistent, so we have to offer candidates as
many “fresh starts” as possible, and each task may
represent a fresh start.
Test only writing ability, nothing else. Test writing
not creativity, imagination, general knowledge, etc.
Restrict candidates: Writing tasks should be well
defined, candidates should know just what it is required.
(specify length, give notes, clues or pictures).
Ensure valid and reliable scoring

Set tasks which can be reliably scored.


Set as many tasks as possible
Restrict candidates
Give no choice of tasks
Ensure long enough samples
Create appropriate scales for scoring
Calibrate the scale to be used
Select and train scorers
Follow acceptable scoring procedures
Holistic vs Analytic Scoring

Holistic (Impressionistic) involves the assignment of a


single score to a piece of writing on the basis of an overall
impression of it. An advantage is that it can be very rapid.
Analytic Scoring requires a separate score for each of a
number of aspects of a task. Advantages:
[Link] disposes of the problem of uneven development of
subskills
2. Scorers are compelled to consider aspects of
performance which they might otherwise ignore
3. The very fact that the scorer has to give a number of
scores will tend to make scoring more reliable.

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