This study examines the decision-making behaviors of raters with varying levels of experience while assessing EFL essays of distinct qualities. The data were collected from 28 raters with varying levels of rating experience and working at the English language departments of different universities in Turkey. Using a 10-point analytic rubric, each…

Purpose: Critical thinking pervades formal educational benchmarks in the United States, including the Common Core State Standards. However, little information is available on how it develops. Hence, the primary purpose of this study was to examine the development of critical thinking in adolescents using a written language-sampling task. We also…

This study investigates the potential of individual, collaborative, and E-collaborative writing modalities on the development of syntactic complexity (SC), their sustained effect on SC development, and the potential meditating role of SC of L1 (First Language) in SC of L2 (Second Language). To this end, 90 Iranian intermediate EFL learners…

Social sustainability embraces literacy development as a means by which children integrate their knowledge in society and become powerful and meaningful. In this context, the development of writing among young children requires the design of new teaching strategies that allow for the multimodal repertoire brought by children into the classroom.…

This article reports on an exploratory study which investigated the impact of automated feedback in a writing class among some Chinese EFL university learners who were at a lower language level. In particular, the study explored the students' perceptions of Pigai, the largest and most popular locally designed automated writing evaluation system…

This study investigates the effectiveness of Modified Multi-Component Cognitive Strategy Instruction (MMCSI) on expository text comprehension skills of students with mild intellectual disability (ID). Three students participated from inclusion classes of three different secondary schools in Turkey. The study was conducted using a multiple probe…

The problem of poor writing skills at the postsecondary level is a large and troubling one. This study investigated the writing skills of low-skilled adults attending college developmental education courses by determining whether variables from an automated scoring system were predictive of human scores on writing quality rubrics. The human-scored…

This work underscores how English Language Arts (ELA) faculty and school administrators in middle schools can partner with area colleges and universities to mine available data generated from high stakes writing assessments, and to answer teachers' questions about students' attitudes to writing. We first discuss the nature of the writing…

The United Kingdom's (UK's) Research Excellence Framework of 2014 was an expensive high stakes evaluation which had a range of impacts on higher education institutions across the country. One component was an assessment of the quality of research outputs where a major feature was a series of panels organised to read and rate the outputs of their…

Despite the increasing volume of research in peer assessment for writing, few studies have been conducted to explore teachers' perceptions of its appropriateness for writing instruction. It is essential to understand teachers' perceptions of peer assessment as teachers play an important role in whether and how peer assessment is implemented in…

The vast majority of EFL learners found reading and writing quite challenging learning activities to engage in. This has also been the case in our EFL class. As a result, many of them feel discouraged to read and to write. These barriers also led to poor achievement in these language skills. To deal with such an issue, EFL teachers need to design…

This study explored the relationship between legibility in handwriting scores and compositional scores of students in grade five in one Northwest Georgia school. The ability to recall and write the letters automatically may impact the composing skills of students engaged in the writing process. Handwriting, often considered a motor skill in young…

This study evaluates high school students' perceptions of automated writing feedback, and the influence of these perceptions on revising, as a function of varying modes of computer-based writing instruction. Findings indicate that students' perceptions of automated feedback accuracy, ease of use, relevance, and understandability were favorable.…

This study explores the effect of translation strategies on undergraduate students' second language writing in three French composition classes. After the grammar translation method was used in foreign language teaching, translation in the foreign language classroom was banned for a long time. It is now reappearing in those language classrooms and…

The present study aimed to identify difficulties in writing at the beginning of educational science programmes in the Finnish Open University by analysing the students' written argumentation and use of sources at the textual level. The data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The results showed that many students began their…