Human raters' assessment of interpreting is a complex process. Previous researchers have mainly relied on verbal reports to examine this process. To advance our understanding, we conducted an empirical study, collecting raters' eye-movement and retrospection data in a computerised interpreting assessment in which three groups of raters (n = 35)…

Issues concerning the selection of judges for standard setting are discussed. Determining the consistency of judges' recommendations, or their congruity with other expert recommendations, would help in selection. Enough judges must be chosen to allow estimation of recommendations by an entire population of judges. (SLD)

Based on her study of the assessment and validation of final year projects in two academic departments--one located in a humanities faculty and the other in an engineering faculty of a South African university--Suellen Shay argues that the assessment of complex tasks is a socially situated interpretive act. Her argument centers on three questions.…

Several common sources of error in assessment that depends on the use of judges are identified, and ways to reduce the impact of rating errors are examined. Numerous threats to the validity of scores based on ratings exist. These threats include: (1) the halo effect; (2) stereotyping; (3) perception differences; (4) leniency/stringency error; and…

A study examined how pragmatic form influences evaluation of student essays in university placement testing. Specifically, the study documented how patterns in students' use of information (assumed to be either old, inferable, or new for readers) affected the holistic scores for quality given to the essays. Subjects, 99 randomly selected entering…