Multilingual summative assessments face significant challenges due to tensions that exist between multiple language provision and comparability. Yet, conventional approaches for investigating comparability in multilingual assessments fail to accommodate assessments that comprise extended responses that target complex constructs. This article…

Educationalists have had serious problems in proposing well-grounded ways of teaching critical thinking. Reviews of the field have called for research to develop theory concerning the learning experience associated with critical thinking enhancement, as well as to explore more tailored teaching and evaluation methods. This article suggests an…

With the increasing number of English language learners in global classrooms, it has become more and more difficult for teachers to maintain their role as the primary communicator with students via one-on-one interactions. As a result, teachers often assign duties to their students. This change of power may be difficult for teachers and students…

Recent years have witnessed an increased interest in automated writing evaluation (hereafter AWE). However, few studies have examined the use of AWE with apprehensive writers. Hence, this study extends research in this area, investigating the effect of using AWE on reducing writing apprehension and enhancing grammatical knowledge. The participants…

Writing from source text is critical for developing college-and-career readiness because it is required in advanced academic environments and many vocations. Scenario-based assessment (SBA) represents one approach to measuring this ability. In such assessment, the scenario presents an issue that the student is to read and write about. Before…

How writing teachers conduct their assessment is an important but under-researched topic in the field of language assessment. By partly adopting Cheng et al.'s (2004) survey, this mail survey study aims to fill this gap by examining how tertiary-level EFL writing teachers assess their students in basic English writing classes in Taiwan. The…

This study used think-aloud protocols to compare essay-rating processes across holistic and analytic rating scales in the context of China's College English Test Band 6 (CET-6). A group of 9 experienced CET-6 raters scored the same batch of 10 CET-6 essays produced in an operational CET-6 administration twice, using both the CET-6 holistic…

This study investigated the effects of assessment strategies and self-regulated learning skills on students' learning and perceptions of assessment for learning. The results revealed no statistically significant difference in the immediate skill-based and cognitive learning outcomes, but peer assessment teams scored significantly higher than the…

Starting from the premise that good writing requires sound thinking, this paper presents a workable process for developing and using writing assignments as thinking and learning tools within a historical and philosophical context. Though presented from the perspective of a chemist, this process is actually general in nature and links writing…

Earlier research on assessment suggests that even when Native English Speaker (NSE) and Non-Native English Speaker (NNES) writers make similar errors, faculty tend to assess the NNES writers more harshly. Studies indicate that evaluators may be particularly severe when grading NNES writers holistically. In an effort to provide more recent data on…

This study examined 412 college students' essay performance on two prompt types, a traditional prose essay and a type incorporating graphics, modeled on those from English Language Challenge Examination (ELCE) developed for the University of Southern California (USC). The majority of the participants were international students at USC. Each…