Background: Research has shown that early identification of children with language issues is critical for effective intervention, and yet many children are not identified until school age. The use of parent-completed rating scales, especially in urban, minority populations, might improve early identification if parent ratings are found to be…

Performance assessments have become the norm for evaluating language learners' writing abilities in international examinations of English proficiency. Two aspects of these assessments are usually systematically varied: test takers respond to different prompts, and their responses are read by different raters. This raises the possibility of undue…

The present study investigated the effectiveness of integrating RCampus in EFL freshman classrooms on EFL students' reading and writing skills development. Forty-three freshman students majoring in translation participated in the study. Before instruction, the students were pretested. Then they received traditional in-class instruction that…

For many purposes, it is useful to collect a corpus of texts all produced to the same stimulus, whether to measure performance (as on a test) or to test hypotheses about population differences. This paper examines several methods for measuring similarities in phrasing and content and demonstrates that these methods can be used to identify…

In response to widespread concern that many American students do not write well enough to meet the requirements of higher education and the workplace, the College Board's National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges has called for a writing revolution. A key component of this revolution is evaluation, with particular emphasis…

Whether test takers should be allowed access to dictionaries when taking L2 tests has been the subject of debate for a good number of years. Opinions differ according to how the test construct is understood and whether the underlying value system favours process-orientated assessment for learning, with its concern to elicit the test takers' best…

Many educators, students, parents and other taxpayers rely on the perception that literacy is some narrowly defined ideal, and that students must all conform to that ideal to become successful, (in other words) productive citizens. Sharon Crowley posits two ways of thinking about texts. In one, texts are discursive bits produced to engender more…

Based on the results of a Phase 1 investigation into the nature of legal writing, a prototype writing assessment, the Diagnostic Writing Skills Test (DWST) for entering law students was developed. The DWST is composed of two multiple-choice testlets based on prompts and responses to the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) Writing Sample. It contains…

The development and scoring of a recently introduced computer-based writing skills test is described. The test asks the examinee to edit a writing passage presented on a computer screen. Scoring difficulties are addressed through the combined use of option weighting and the sequential probability ratio test. (SLD)

Contains the guide used by scorers of the 12th grade persuasive writing test of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), samples of student responses at each of the six levels of performance, and discussion of the scoring methods. (Author/SLD)

Studied the relationship between writing skills tested on a relatively brief standardized assessment and some nontest indicators of student writing ability. Results for 2,057 college students show modest correlations between writing assessment essays and the various nontest indicators, with performance on the assessment exhibiting the strongest…

Three pieces of writing were collected from 36 adolescent girls in each of three years to test writing-development scales measuring idea development, language use, and audience awareness. The scales were easy to apply in the classroom and capable of assessing students of varied disabilities. (SK)

Standardized writing tests helps educators to learn how well their students' will be scored and how well they can apply assessment techniques in their own classrooms. Students can use assessment as an instruction tool in order to generate a scoring rubric of their own, which fosters critical thinking and formative self-assessment abilities that…

This study examined the relationship between high school student achievement, per pupil expenditure, school district enrollment, selected student demographics (economically disadvantaged, racial and ethnic groupings {African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Native American/Alaskan, and White}, limited English proficiency, and students…

Our nation's bleak economic situation has forced state governments to cut educational funding. While funds are decreasing, accountability for student achievement remains high. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) forces each state to create and implement an accountability system of rewards and sanctions based on standardized test scores. In…