Fairness of language tests and testing practices has been a concern among test developers and test users. The 19th annual Language Testing Research Colloquium held in 1997 in Florida, brought this concern into focus. The papers in this volume offer an introduction to fairness and validation in the field of language assessment.
Focusing specifically on holistic scoring, this text looks at issues surrounding the assessment of writing, looking at its social, historical and theoretical context, and questioning what is really meant by ""good writing"".
What is the most fair and efficient way to assess the writing performance of students? Although the question gained importance during the US educational accountability movement of the 1980s and 1990s, the issue had preoccupied international language experts and evaluators long before. One answer to the question, the assessment method known as holistic scoring, is central to understanding writing in academic settings. Early Holistic Scoring of Writing addresses the history of holistic essay assessment in the United Kingdom and the United States from the mid-1930s to the mid-1980s—and newly conceptualizes holistic scoring by philosophically and reflectively reinterpreting the genre’s origin, development, and significance. The book chronicles holistic scoring from its initial origin in the United Kingdom to the beginning of its heyday in the United States. Chapters cover little-known history, from the holistic scoring of school certificate examination essays written by Blitz evacuee children in Devon during WWII to teacher adaptations of holistic scoring in California schools during the 1970s. Chapters detail the complications, challenges, and successes of holistic scoring from British high-stakes admissions examinations to foundational pedagogical research by Bay Area Writing Project scholars. The book concludes with lessons learned, providing a guide for continued efforts to assess student writing through evidence models. Exploring the possibility of actionable history, Early Holistic Scoring of Writing reconceptualizes writing assessment. Here is a new history that retells the origins of our present body of knowledge in writing studies.
The diagnostic assessment of writing is an important aspect of language testing which has often been neclected in the literature. However, it is an area which poses special challenges to practioners both in the classroom and in large-scale testing situations. This book presents a study which set out to develop and validate a rating scale specifically designed for the diagnostic assessment of writing in an academic English setting. The scale was developed by analysing a large number of writing performances produced by both native speakers of English and learners of English as an additional language. The rating scale was then validated using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The study showed that a detailed data-based rating scale is more valid and more useful for diagnostic purposes than the more commonly used impressionistic rating scale.
There has been a remarkable growth of interest in the assessment of student learning and its relation to the process of learning in higher education over the past ten years. This interest has been expressed in various ways – through large scale research projects, international conferences, the development of principles of assessment that supports learning, a growing awareness of the role of feedback as an integral part of the learning process, and the publication of exemplary assessment practices. At the same time, more limited attention has been given to the underlying nature of assessment, to the concerns that arise when assessment is construed as a measurement process, and to the role of judgement in evaluating the quality of students’ work. It is now timely to take stock of some of the critical concepts that underpin our understanding of the multifarious relationships between assessment and learning, and to explicate the nature of assessment as judgement. Despite the recent growth in interest noted above, assessment in higher education remains under-conceptualized. This book seeks to make a significant contribution to conceptualizing key aspects of assessment, learning and judgement.
In this book, authors Murphy and O’Neill propose a new way forward, moving away from high-stakes, test-based writing assessment and the curriculum it generates and toward an approach to assessment that centers on student learning and success. Reviewing the landscape of writing assessment and existing research-based theories on writing, the authors demonstrate how a test-based approach to accountability and current practices have undermined effective teaching and learning of writing. This book bridges the gap between real-world writing that takes place in schools, college, and careers and the writing that students are asked to do in standardized writing assessments to offer a new ecological approach to writing assessment. Murphy and O’Neill’s new way forward turns accountability inside out to help teachers understand the role of formative assessments and assessment as inquiry. It also brings the outside in, by bridging the gap between authentic writing and writing assessment. Through these two strands, readers learn how assessment systems can be restructured to become better aligned with contemporary understandings of writing and with best practices in teaching. With examples of assessments from elementary school through college, chapters include guidance on designing assessments to address multiple kinds of writing, integrate reading with writing, and incorporate digital technology and multimodality. Emphasizing the central role that teachers play in systemic reform, the authors offer sample assessments developed with intensive teacher involvement that support learning and provide information for the evaluation of programs and schools. This book is an essential resource for graduate students, instructors, scholars and policymakers in writing assessment, composition, and English education.
Brian Huot's aim for this book is both ambitious and provocative. He wants to reorient composition studies' view of writing assessment. To accomplish this, he not only has to inspire the field to perceive assessment--generally not the most appreciated area of study--as deeply significant to theory and pedagogy, he also has to counter some common misconceptions about the history of assessment in writing. In (Re)Articulating Writing Assessment, Huot advocates a new understanding, a more optimistic and productive one than we have seen in composition for a very long time. Assessment, as Huot points out, defines what is valued by a teacher or a society. What isn't valued isn't assessed; it tends to disappear from the curriculum. The dark side of this truth is what many teachers find troubling about large scale assessments, as standardized tests don't grant attention or merit to all they should. Instead, assessment has been used as an interested social mechanism for reinscribing current power relations and class systems.
