One of the challenges of discussing validity arguments for machine scoring of essays centers on the absence of a commonly held definition and theory of good writing. At best, the algorithms attempt to measure select attributes of writing and calibrate them against human ratings with the goal of accurate prediction of scores for new essays.…

In this paper, we show how children's creativity manifests in literary aesthetics and how they explore moral subjects as a result. Literary aesthetics involve a range of artistic elements or expressions within a textual work. Writers may use aesthetic properties to express individual appreciation or how people view the world, often in relation to…

Scholars have given little attention to testing's influence on the outcomes of university English preparatory programs (UEPP). Variations on the two main classifications of writing evaluation, the holistic and the analytic were examined. The objectives were to identify the assumptions for inclusion of writing in UEPPs, analyze the skills and…

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,…

Congenitally, profoundly deaf children whose first language is British Sign Language (BSL) and whose speech is largely unintelligible need to be literate to communicate effectively in a hearing society. Both spelling and writing skills of such children can be limited, to the extent that no currently available assessment method offers an adequate…