Examines the questions: (1) What criteria do raters use when making holistic judgments of brief, impromptu essays? and (2) Do raters judge such essays in the same way they think they do? (FL)

The utility of computer analysis in the assessment of written products was studied using the WordMAP software package. Data were collected for 92 college freshmen, using: (1) the Test of Standard Written English (TSWE); (2) the English Composition Test of the College Board; (3) verbal and mathematical Scholastic Aptitude Tests; (4) two narrative…

Research was conducted into the specific characteristics of brief, impromptu essay writing. A random sample of 806 essays was taken from the more than 80,000 written for the College Board's English Composition Achievement Test (ECT) in 1979. Using a special taxonomy of 20 writing characteristics, these essays were subjected to a second reading in…

Brief, impromptu essays written for the 1990 administration of the College Board's English Composition Test (ECT) were randomly sampled for four groups of examinees. These essays were subjected to further holistic ratings beyond those conducted for the ECT, and analytical ratings were also obtained. The holistic scores were correlated with the…

Six university English departments collaborated in this examination of the differences between multiple-choice and essay tests in evaluating writing skills. The study also investigated ways the two tools can complement one another, ways to improve cost effectiveness of essay testing, and ways to integrate assessment and the educational process.…

The relationships among scores on traditional college entrance tests and scores on an essay placement test for women and men and four ethnic groups were examined. The tests correlated highly with essay performance. However, women tended to be underestimated and men and ethnic minorities overestimated by these measures. (Author/PN)

Direct assessment of writing skill, usually considered to be synonymous with assessment by means of writing samples, is reviewed in terms of its history and with respect to evidence of its reliability and validity. Reliability is examined as it is influenced by reader inconsistency, domain sampling, and other sources of error. Validity evidence is…

Over 2,000 writing samples were collected from four undergraduate institutions and compared, where possible, with scores on a multiple-choice test. High correlations between ratings of the writing samples and multiple-choice test scores were obtained. Samples contributed substantially to the prediction of both college grades and writing…

Recent trends in writing skill assessment suggest a movement toward the use of free-response writing tasks and away from the traditional multiple-choice test. A number of national examinations, including major college admissions tests, have included free-response components. Most of the arguments in support of this trend relate to the hypothesized…