Note-taking is a commonly applied pedagogical strategy across all areas of education. In higher education specifically, there has been an increasing push to get students involved in collaborative note-taking in order to increase their engagement with the contents and to inspire deeper and more meaningful learning. However, there is a lack of…

This quant-QUAL sequential explanatory mixed methods study describes a framework for evaluating the communicative competence (Canale & Swain, 1980; Canale, 1983) of non-beginner students of Chinese for placement purposes at U.S. four-year postsecondary institutions. A pragmatic lens was used to collect and analyze data that generated a…

I use Burkean analysis to show how neoliberalism undermines faculty assessment expertise and underwrites testing industry expertise in the current assessment scene. Contending that we cannot extricate ourselves from our limited agency in this scene until we abandon the familiar "stakeholder" theory of power, I propose a rewriting of the…

This article presents four symposium papers on assessment. It includes: (1) "Closed Systems and Standardized Writing Tests" (Chris M. Anson); (2) "Information Illiteracy and Mass Market Writing Assessments" (Les Perelman); (3) "Genre, Testing, and the Constructed Realities of Student Achievement" (Mya Poe); and (4)…

This study examined the reliability of scores assigned to the essays written by Kentucky students to meet the University Writing Requirement (UWR) at Eastern Kentucky University. Two sets of essays, 50 each, on the same prompt that had been read and scored in 1989 and 1997 by trained UWR scorers were read by 7 UWR scorers in 2000. A correlation…

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…

Unstable, and potentially invalid, variance component estimates may result from using only a limited portion of available data from operational performance assessments. However, missing observations are common in these settings because of the nature of the assessment design. This paper describes a procedure for overcoming the computational and…

Beginning in 1999, an analytical writing measure was offered as an optional test in the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) program. This test will be incorporated into the GRE General Test in fall 2002. The essays in this test focus on critical reasoning and analytical writing skills. This study examined the performance of various examinee groups…

The drafts produced by 2 groups of college students, a total of 1,089, during an examination in cognitive psychology were analyzed. Results show that only a limited number of students used an efficient (organized) drafting strategy, even though this is generally associated with the highest examination scores. (SLD)

Approximately 300 prospective graduate students each wrote two essays for the Graduate Record Examinations in 40-minute and 60-minute time periods. Analysis revealed that performance was, on average, significantly better with the 60-minute limit. There was no interaction between self-described test-taking style (fast versus slow) and time limits.…

A study compared the effects of retesting (with and without the benefit of short term instruction) on the scores of subjects in an upper-division university who had failed a writing test. Subjects who did not receive a passing score in their first attempt at the essay test were given the opportunity of attending a 4-hour workshop designed to…

This study demonstrates the advantages of using a constrained optimization algorithm to explore the optimal number of prompts, modes of discourse, and raters for achieving an acceptable level of reliability during a direct writing assessment. Writing samples elicited from 50 college students were rated by 3 graduate students and the scores…

A study examined the differences in the essay exam scores of college students who did no planning, some planning, or extensive planning before writing answers to questions on essay exams. Subjects, 100 undergraduate education students enrolled in reading methods classes and 37 graduate reading students enrolled in a psychology of reading class,…

Contends the impact of a final examination on grades surpasses its role in shaping the learning experience. Suggests issuing final examination questions in the syllabus to provide a structure for the learning process and for organizing data. Includes guidelines for essay examination questions and describes an introductory comparative course in…

The degree to which laptop and standard-size desktop computers are likely to produce comparable test results for the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test was studied. Verbal, quantitative, and writing sections of a retired version of the GRE were used, since it was expected that performance on reading passages or mathematics items might…