The present study explores two rating methods for peer assessment (analytical rating using criteria and comparative judgement) in light of concurrent validity, reliability and insufficient diagnosticity (i.e. the degree to which substandard work is recognised by the peer raters). During a second-year undergraduate course, students wrote a one-page…

E-learning systems are transforming the educational sector and making education more affordable and accessible. Recently, many e-learning systems have been equipped with advanced technologies that facilitate the roles of educators and increase the efficiency of teaching and learning. One such technology is Automatic Essay Grading (AEG) or…

Creating summative assessments that accurately test students' breadth of knowledge and critical thinking can be a difficult task. Instructors often rely upon overly complex quick response questions or constructed response exams. However, students often have negative perceptions of the latter. The authors implemented an approach for administering…

The purpose of this multiple intrinsic case study was to describe how Northeastern United States middle school teachers and students engaged with a new automated writing evaluation tool used to score and provide feedback on extended essay assignments to improve teaching and learning writing. Richard Elmore's (1993) instructional core framework is…

Prominent Feature Analysis (PFA) is a reliable and valid writing assessment tool, derived from the writing it is used to assess. PFA, used to assess on-demand expository essays in Grades 3-12, uncovers positive and negative characteristics of a sample. To extend PFA to a new academic level and genre, I assessed scientific writing of 208…

A novel instrument, the Features of Excellent Arguments task (FEXA), was developed to elicit adolescents' judgments about argumentative essays displaying to varying degrees features characteristic of strong persuasive writing: academic language, rich evidence, multiple perspectives, and rhetorical appeal. We collected students' categorical choices…

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…

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical case for the value of scenario-based assessment (SBA) in the measurement of students' written argumentation skills. First, we frame the problem in terms of creating a reasonably efficient method of evaluating written argumentation skills, including for students at relatively low levels of competency.…

Writing essays and receiving feedback can be useful for fostering students' learning and motivation. When faced with large class sizes, it is desirable to identify students who might particularly benefit from feedback. In this article, we tested the potential of Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) for identifying poor essays. A total of 14 teaching…

Owing to the increasing diversity of assessments in higher education, feedback should be provided to students in a format that can assist future and alternative work. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Essay Feedback Checklist on future alternative assessments. Participants were assigned to one of two groups, one of which…

The purpose of the current study was to develop and validate a measure of motivation for use with basic college writers that would measure self-efficacy, achievement goals, beliefs, and affect. As part of a design research project on curriculum for community college developmental writing classes, 133 students in 11 classes completed the motivation…

Schools are scrambling to prepare students for the writing assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards. In some states, writing has not been assessed for over a decade. Yet, with the use of computerized grading of the student's writing, many teachers are wondering how to best prepare students for the writing assessments that will…

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…

This essay describes Louisiana State University's search for an alternative to available placement protocols. Under the leadership of Les Perelman at MIT, LSU collaborated with four universities to develop iMOAT, a program for administering online assessments of student writing. This essay focuses on LSU's On-line Challenge, which developed from…

Possible integrated and independent tasks were pilot tested for the writing section of a new generation of the TOEFL[R] (Test of English as a Foreign Language[TM]). This study examines the impact of various rating designs and of the number of tasks and raters on the reliability of writing scores based on integrated and independent tasks from the…