Existing approaches to measuring writing performance are insufficient in terms of both technical adequacy as well as feasibility for use as a screening measure. This study examined the validity and diagnostic accuracy of several approaches to automated text evaluation as well as written expression curriculum-based measurement (WE-CBM) to determine…

Checking essays written by students is a very time consuming task. Besides spellings and grammar, they also need to be evaluated on their semantic content such as cohesion, coherence, etc. In this study we focus on one such aspect of semantic content which is the topic of the essay. Putting it formally, given a prompt or essay-statement and an…

Testing English writing skills could be multi-dimensional; thus, the study aimed to compare students' writing scores calculated according to Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Multi-Facet Rasch Model (MFRM). The research was carried out in 2019 with 100 university students studying at a foreign language preparatory class and four experienced…

Reading, writing, and mathematics are widely regarded as foundational academic skills upon which many other academic skills depend. Consequently, each receives a considerable allocation of resources for instruction, assessment, and intervention in K-12 education (Hooper, 2002). An additional indicator of the importance of these skills is the…

This article adds to a growing body of research tracing the influence of neoliberal education reforms on policy and practice by showing the ways in which student writers are positioned within market-oriented discourses and values through Texas state exam writing prompts. As a genre-in-use, the writing prompts are seemingly mundane texts that…

Early writing is a foundational component of emergent literacy. Despite recent increases in early writing research, studies often narrowly focus on transcription (i.e., letter and/or name writing, spelling) to the exclusion of their ability to compose or generate ideas and translate into writing. Research investigating composing approaches it in…

In research on EFL writing, much attention has been paid to teachers' practises in assessment or feedback, but little is known about teachers' behaviors in these two domains as a whole. There also seems to be a paucity of research on how teachers' reactions to student writing develop from pre- through in-service. The current study, using a…

This study sought to examine the pre-task planning and post-task revising practices of adults with low literacy and how those practices affect overall writing quality. Seventy-six adults with low literacy composed essays in response to a prompt and were given time for pre-task planning and post-task revising. Results showed that participants with…

Background: This exploratory writing analytics study uses argumentative writing samples from two performance contexts--standardized writing assessments and university English course writing assignments--to compare: (1) linguistic features in argumentative writing; and (2) relationships between linguistic characteristics and academic performance…

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) tools can facilitate teachers' analysis of and feedback on students' writing. However, increasing evidence indicates that writing instructors experience challenges in implementing AWE tools successfully. For this reason, our development of the Writing Analytics Tool (WAT) has employed a participatory approach…

Educators play an important role in ensuring that students attain the necessary strategic actions to become skilled writers. Studies have indicated that teachers need to consistently embed a larger range of evidence-based writing practices in their instruction to help their students improve the overall quantity and quality of their writing. The…

In this archival history, a college writing teacher and recent graduate together challenge the integrationist narrative of Basic Writing, grounded in "white innocence" and dating back to the 1970s. Joining other studies of physical and linguistic segregation in higher education, we recover the true birth of Basic Writing from 1969 to…

While much research supports the benefits of computer-mediated collaborative writing (CW) in second language (L2) classrooms, the assessment of CW has received scant attention. This study proposed an assessment scheme considering both the products and processes when assessing online synchronous CW, and explored its effects on learners'…

As integrated writing tasks in large-scale and classroom-based writing assessments have risen in popularity, research studies have increasingly concentrated on providing validity evidence. Given the fact that most of these studies focus on adult second language learners rather than younger ones, this study examined the relationship between written…

With the burgeoning popularity and swift advancements of automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems in language classrooms, scholarly and practical interest in this area has noticeably increased. This systematic review aims to comprehensively investigate current research on three prominent AWE systems: Grammarly, Pigai, and Criterion. Objectives…