This article describes the development and administration of the "Kindergarten-Second Grade (K-2) Writing Data-Based Decision Making (DBDM) Survey." The "K-2 Writing DBDM Survey" was developed to learn more about current DBDM practices specific to early writing. A total of 376 educational professionals (175 general education…

Current approaches used in educational research and practice to evaluate the quality of written arguments often rely on structural analysis. In such assessments, credit is awarded for the presence of structural elements of an argument, such as claims, evidence, and rebuttals. In this article, we discuss limitations of such approaches, including…

Rater comments tend to be qualitatively analyzed to indicate raters' application of rating scales. This study applied natural language processing (NLP) techniques to quantify meaningful, behavioral information from a corpus of rater comments and triangulated that information with a many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM) analysis of rater scores. The…

This study explores lower secondary school teachers' arguments and perceptions for using a 26-point grading scale (26-PGS), and gender differences in assessment practice. An explanatory sequential design was conducted. First, teachers (n = 6) assessment of students' text (n = 182) was analysed. In the subsequent phase, an open-ended questionnaire…

In the existing literature, scholars have proposed various indices to measure the lexical richness (LR) of English as a foreign language (EFL) writing. However, there are currently issues of redundant indices and inconsistent usage. Attempting to address the research question of which indices are the most sensitive and effective ones to…

Although peer review has been widely used for formative assessment in writing instruction, there remain concerns about whether assessors are at a sufficient writing performance level that would allow them to identify major problems in the reviewed work and provide helpful feedback to improve draft quality. Little empirical research has examined…

Assessing students' writing performance is essential to adequately monitor and promote individual writing development, but it is also a challenge. The present research investigates a benchmark rating procedure for assessing texts written by upper-elementary students. In two studies we examined whether a benchmark rating procedure (1) leads to…

While the importance of feedback in education is well established, the effects of structured knowledge in collaborative academic writing remains uncertain. This study introduces an academic writing feedback tool that combines structured knowledge mining, analysis, and visualization. An empirical experiment was conducted in a second-year university…

There is a current debate about the extent to which ChatGPT, a natural language AI chatbot, can disrupt processes in higher education settings. The chatbot is capable of not only answering queries in a human-like way within seconds but can also provide long tracts of texts which can be in the form of essays, emails, and coding. In this study, in…

Increased expectations for writing performance have created a need for formative writing assessments that will help middle school teachers better understand adolescents' grade-appropriate writing skills and monitor the progress of students with or at risk for writing disabilities. In this practice piece, we first explain research-based…

Both of us were drawn into the writing assessment field initially through our lived experiences as schoolteachers. We worked in radically different contexts -- Martin was head of a languages department and teacher of French and German in the late 1990s in the UK, and David was a Grade 12 teacher of Academic English in Alberta, Canada, at the turn…

Despite the critical role of academic English writing proficiency in higher education, existing research has inadequately addressed the comparative impact of teacher-led and student-involved assessments on writing outcomes. To address the research gap, this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of 'Teacher-Only Assessment' compared to…

Student-directed projects are a promising approach to supporting powerful learning, yet uncertainty about how to assess these projects presents a barrier to widespread incorporation in K-12 classrooms. Drawing on interviews with computer science teachers and an interdisciplinary literature review, Karen Brennan, Sarah Blum-Smith, and Paulina…

Evaluating the impact of Academic Literacies teaching (Lea and Street [1998. "Student Writing in Higher Education: An Academic Literacies Approach." "Studies in Higher Education" 23 (2): 157-72. doi:10.1080/03075079812331380364]) is difficult, as it involves gauging whether writers: (1) gain better understanding of what…

College faculty faces decisions about how to provide feedback on written work. We compared the quality of student writing and student impressions of feedback from both full and minimal markup methods. There was only one significant difference in the quality of writing or content between full and minimal markup. Students scored the functionality of…