This study explores using transfer learning in machine learning for natural language processing (NLP) to create generic automated essay scoring (AES) models, providing instant online scoring for statewide writing assessments in K-12 education. The goal is to develop an instant online scorer that is generalizable to any prompt, addressing the…

Writing is one of the four important skills in learning a foreign language. However, most high school students find it uneasy to write due to many different both objective and subjective reasons. Finding effective solutions to this problem is always appreciated. This study, therefore, hopes to investigate whether peer feedback has any positive…

This article addresses the problem of how to best design authentic writing assessments in history that support learners in demonstrating the types of higher order thinking skills needed for effective citizenship. Recent research has primarily focused on curriculum interventions intended to build disciplinary literacies through various types of…

Student Teams Achievement Division (STAD) is one of the simplest of all cooperative learning methods, where team works in learning English provides students with the team opportunity to express and to communicate with each other. One of the ways to make them express and communicate with each other is by dividing the class into several team works…

Many special education (SPED) students are failing the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) despite writing instruction provided by SPED teachers. The purpose of this study was to understand teachers' perceptions about why students were failing the literacy/writing test and document whether evidence-based assessment and writing practices…

Notwithstanding the introduction of education multilingual policies worldwide, testing and assessment procedures still rely almost exclusively on the monolingual construct. This paper describes a study, part of a larger project fostering a new multilingual education policy in Israeli schools, exploring bi/multilingual assessment. It included two…

Strategies instruction has improved the writing of high school struggling writers in previous studies, including students with disabilities. This study examined the effectiveness of argumentative writing instruction for the ACT writing exam using the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model with high school students with disabilities or…

On the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessments, the attainment of performance level 4 is intended to indicate college readiness or being "on track" to college and career readiness. Students who achieve Level 4 should have a 0.75 probability of attaining at least a C in entry-level,…

Problem Statement: There have been many attempts to research the effective assessment of writing ability, and many proposals for how this might be done. In this sense, rater reliability plays a crucial role for making vital decisions about testees in different turning points of both educational and professional life. Intra-rater and inter-rater…

The Berge et al. article in this volume presents the functional construct of writing that underlies summative and formative assessment of writing as a key competency in Norway. A functional construct implies that specific acts of writing and their purposes constrain what is a relevant selection among the semiotic resources that writing generally…

We investigated the criterion-related validity of four indicators of curriculum-based measurement in writing (WCBM) when using expository versus narrative writing prompts as compared to the validity of passage copying speed. Specifically, we compared criterion-related validity of production-dependent (total words written, correct word sequences),…

We evaluated the narrative and expository writing samples of 12 adolescents with language-learning disabilities (LLD) in Grades 6 to 12 for elements of microstructure (e.g., productivity, grammatical complexity) and macrostructure (genre-specific text structure elements) using an experimental measure. Writing samples were elicited with…

This report focuses on the initial development of the predicted score paths for ACT Aspire reporting. The paths provide predicted score ranges for the next two years--as well as predicted ACT score ranges for tests administered at grades 9 and 10. Longitudinal ACT Aspire data for students tested in spring 2013 and spring 2014, as well as…

Development of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and the creation of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), changes the pattern of accountability testing. These changes raise the question: "How should NAEP's validity and utility be…

The "Common European Framework of Reference" (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001) provides a competency model that is increasingly used as a point of reference to compare language examinations. Nevertheless, aligning examinations to the CEFR proficiency levels remains a challenge. In this article, we propose a new, level-centered approach to…