This experimental study explores how source use features impact raters' judgment of argumentation in a second language (L2) integrated writing test. One hundred four experienced and novice raters were recruited to complete a rating task that simulated the scoring assignment of a local English Placement Test (EPT). Sixty written responses were…

Cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA) intends to identify learners' strengths and weaknesses in latent cognitive attributes to provide personalized remedial instructions. Previous CDA studies on English as a Foreign Language (EFL)/English as a Second Language (ESL) writing have adopted dichotomous cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) to analyze data…

Assessing the content of learners' compositions is a common practice in second language (L2) writing assessment. However, the construct definition of content in L2 writing assessment potentially underrepresents the target competence in content and language integrated learning (CLIL), which aims to foster not only L2 proficiency but also critical…

In this Brief Report, we describe an evaluation of and revisions to a rubric adapted from the Jacobs et al.'s (1981) ESL COMPOSITION PROFILE, with four rubric categories and 20-point rating scales, in the context of an intensive English program writing placement test. Analysis of 4 years of rating data (2016-2021, including 434 essays) using…

This study employed a mixed-methods approach to examine how rater performance develops during a semester-long rater certification program for an English as a Second Language (ESL) writing placement test at a large US university. From 2016 to 2018, we tracked three groups of novice raters (n = 30) across four rounds in the certification program.…

This longitudinal study (2002-2014) investigates the stability of rating characteristics of a large group of raters over time in the context of the writing paper of a national high-stakes examination. The study uses one measure of rater severity and two measures of rater consistency. The results suggest that the rating characteristics of…

This paper investigates what matters to medical domain experts when setting standards on a language for specific purposes (LSP) English proficiency test: the Occupational English Test's (OET) writing sub-test. The study explores what standard-setting participants value when making performance judgements about test candidates' writing responses,…

Accurate placement within levels of an ESL program is crucial for optimal teaching and learning. Commercially available tests are commonly used for placement, but their effectiveness has been found to vary. This study uses data from the Ohio Program of Intensive English (OPIE) at Ohio University to examine the value of two commercially available…

The continuation task, a new form of reading-writing integrated task in which test-takers read an incomplete story and then write the continuation and ending of the story, has been increasingly used in writing assessment, especially in China. However, language-test developers' understanding of the effects of important task-related factors on…

Writing in a foreign language is a particularly difficult skill to develop, especially when young learners are concerned because they are parallelly learning to write in their L1 and do not have strong oral foundations in their L2. The issue becomes even more complex when the ways to assess young learners' writing are considered, given that…

The present study investigates integrated writing assessment performances with regard to the linguistic features of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). Given the increasing presence of integrated tasks in large-scale and classroom assessments, validity evidence is needed for the claim that their scores reflect targeted language abilities.…

This study aimed to examine the sources of variability in the second-language (L2) writing scores of test-takers who repeated an English language proficiency test, the Pearson Test of English (PTE) Academic, multiple times. Examining repeaters' test scores can provide important information concerning factors contributing to "changes" in…

The present study examined the reliability of the reading, listening, speaking, and writing section scores for the TOEFL iBT® test and their interrelationship in order to collect empirical evidence to support, respectively, the "generalization" inference and the "explanation" inference in the TOEFL iBT validity argument…

Investigating the comparability of students' performance on TOEFL writing tasks and actual academic writing tasks is essential to provide backing for the extrapolation inference in the TOEFL validity argument (Chapelle, Enright, & Jamieson, 2008). This study compared 103 international non-native-English-speaking undergraduate students'…

Previous research in second language writing has shown that when scoring performance assessments even trained raters can exhibit significant differences in severity. When raters disagree, using discussion to try to reach a consensus is one popular form of score resolution, particularly in contexts with limited resources, as it does not require…