Lexical diversity (LD) is an important indicator of second language lexical development. Much research has investigated LD indices, with a focus on learners of English. However, further research is needed in languages that are typologically distinct from English, such as Korean. In this study, we evaluated the reliability and validity of LD…

Keystroke logs provide a comprehensive record of observable writing processes. Previous studies examining the keystroke logs of young L1 English writers performing experimental writing tasks have identified writing processes features predictive of the quality of responses. Contrarily, large-scale studies on the dynamic and temporal nature of L2…

Research into metacognition has found it to facilitate self-regulation and correlate to learners' L2 writing level. Following Lee & Mak's (2018) framework of Metacognitive Instruction (MI) for L2 writing classrooms, this study applies Dynamic Assessment (DA) to writing MI (MI-DA) in a rural middle school EFL class in China. A one-semester…

Indices of lexical diversity have been used to estimate the size of a writer's vocabulary and/or a writer's lexical proficiency for some time. One issue with many commonly used indices of lexical diversity (e.g., TTR and index) is that they vary as a function of text length. Accordingly, much research has been devoted to the development of indices…

Recent research conducted as part of the English Profile identified grammatical criterial features that are characteristic of each Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) proficiency level. The extent to which these criterial features attest in English learners of various first language backgrounds call for an empirical examination. In this…

We report on a standard-setting project in which the Item-Descriptor-Matching Method (IDM) and a complementary benchmarking approach were employed to align a suite of English language proficiency exams to the "Common European Framework of Reference" (CEFR), with a particular focus on the integrated and independent writing exams. Judges'…

This article describes the steps we went through in designing and validating an item bank to diagnose linguistic problems in the English academic writing of university students in Hong Kong. Test items adopt traditional item formats (e.g., MCQ, grammatical judgment tasks, and error correction) but are based on authentic language materials…

This research conducted diagnostic assessment of problems in first-year undergraduates' English academic papers and tracked potential sources of the problems to the writing process and strategy use. Data collected include 339 term papers and interviews with 17 students. The samples were manually error tagged and marked against a detailed…

This paper presents a methodology for directly aligning 'can do' frameworks to each other. The methodology, inspired by the manual for relating examinations to the "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment" (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2009) and Kane's (2004, 2013) interpretative argument, takes…

This study investigated how peer-mediated Dynamic Assessment (DA) unfolded in translation revision competence (TRC) of students of Master's degree of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) in China. Thirty subjects first completed three revision tasks and were then rated as high- or low-level performers according to their average scores across the…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the developmental writing patterns of English as a foreign language (EFL) students across different score levels through a TOEFL Junior® writing task. The sample of this study comprised 2,016 young adolescent EFL students, ranging from 10 to 15 years old, who took the TOEFL Junior test. We performed a…

This study has two research purposes related to L2 writing development. The first aim of this study is to explore how L2 learners receiving intensive ESL instruction develop their writing proficiency (writing quality from an analytic rubric) across two writing tasks (narrative and argumentative writing) over one semester. Limiting its focus to…

In language testing programs, different test forms are often used to administer the same test. Demonstrating the comparability of these forms is essential to avoid criticisms of potential test unfairness. However, studies with this objective are scarce. This study aims to investigate the extent to which the picture-prompt writing tasks of three…

Many students struggle with writing; however, curriculum-based measures (CBM) of writing often use assessment criteria that focus primarily on mechanics. When academic development is assessed in this way, more complex aspects of a student's writing, such as the expression and development of ideas, may be neglected. The current study was a…

Content is related to other aspects of writing, but exactly how they are related has remained unclear or has not received sufficient critical attention. Consequently, in most writing assessments, content has been treated as just one among several relatively distinct but equal elements. However, in this study, the authors have quantified these…