Every year the state of North Carolina requires an English II writing test as part of the End of Course examinations. The purposes of the English II tests are to assess students' mastery of writing, application of grammatical skills, and achievement in literary analysis. This report contains information about the test performance of students in…

This study compared alternative measures of early writing performance with 15 second-grade students in a summer program for students at risk. Two- to three-minute samples were obtained of word copying, sentence copying, word dictation, and sentence dictation. Writing from word and sentence dictation correlated best with global judgments of…

Considers the development of an inter-rater reliability correlation comparing the judgments, or scores, or each judge to see if their observations are similar. Presents a case study of the Northville Public Schools' data for the 2000 MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program) Writing Test. Concludes that in this case study the state fails both…

Finds that the Diagnostic Writing Skills Test, used as a diagnostic grammar pretest for students in a basic business communication course, shows positive correlations between the pretest and the final course grade, but does not predict that grade. (SR)

Investigates whether prompts and topic types affect writing performance of college freshmen taking the Manoa Writing Placement Examination (MWPE). Finds that the MWPE is reliable but that responses to prompts and prompt sets differ. Shows that differences arising in performance on prompts or topics can be minimized by examining mean scores and…

In this objective scoring procedure for assessing learning-disabled students' writing, a standardized process is used to collect writing samples, which are then scored for number of legible words, total number of words written, percentage of legible words, correctly spelled words, number of correct word sequences, and mean length of correct word…

Education remains heavily shackled by punitive, test-driven reform. Despite reasonable alternatives, testing increasingly drives educational accountability and reform. Standardization of direct writing assessments promotes scoring reliability and facilitates educational comparisons and rankings. However, standardized writing is not good writing,…

Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, item analysis, and construct and concurrent criterion-related validity of the Writing Essential Skill Screener-Preschool Version were studied using four independent samples of children (ages 4 to 5). The test displayed a high degree of reliability and validity for a brief pre-writing skills screener.…

Long-term, successful marriages, like that between dependent schools and the National Writing Project, do not always go smoothly. In 1997, DoDDS students performed well on a worldwide assessment of eight different writing modes. Good partnerships avoid shortcuts, use proven models, and reject uniform approaches. (MLH)

This paper examines one department of journalism's efforts to identify, address, and correct basic writing deficiencies for students seeking a journalism degree with a concentration in news-editorial, broadcast, or public relations. Northwestern State University's (NSU) Department of Journalism, located in a mid-sized, open-admissions university…

Thirty years ago, Peter Elbow wrote "Writing without Teachers" and ushered in the process, heuristic approach to language pedagogy. Most distinctive about Elbow's book--and the plethora of others that would follow--was the invitation to allow writing to evolve, to develop, and to grow as a living organism. Suddenly, teachers were supplanting…

Twenty-nine percent of students enrolled in Austin Independent School District were English language learners in 2009-2010. The majority of them (62%) continued to make progress in English proficiency, and their state academic test (TAKS) performance continued to improve over the years.

Results from the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) indicate that English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Literacy Development (ELD) students have comparatively low success and high deferral rates. This study examined the 2002 and 2003 OSSLT test performances of ESL/ELD and non-ESL/ELD students in order to identify and…

Previous studies of washback (the influence of a test on teaching and learning) have provided insights into the complexity of educational systems and test use, especially in relation to the role of the teacher, but have given insufficient attention to the relationship between observed practices and test design features. In this article a washback…

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) were developed to score responses from a previously designed police written communication test that lacked reliability. Rating scales for each of the 9 dimensions of the test consisted of the scale definition and a 5-point continuum, with the scores of 5, 3, and 1 defined by specified behavioral…