Basic consideration in assessing writing

Writing as performance assessment

The term performance assessment is used to describe any assessment procedure that involves either the observation of behavior in the real world or a stimulation of a real life activity. Performance assessment thus differ from traditional paper and pencil tests in the degree to which they represent or stimulate behavior in the real world.In this sense,any writing test that involves actual writing , as opposed to completing multiple-choice items, for example, can be considered a performance test, since the written product represent a performance of writing.

In a performance test in the strong sense of the term, language ability, and more specifically, language knowledge, in Bachman and Palmer's terms, may be only partly responsible for a successful task completion, and extra-linguistic factor may compensate for weaknesses in language knowledge.

In the weak sense of performance assessment, on the other hand, the focus of the assessment is on the language used, not on the fulfillment of the task. Tasks used to elicit language may resemble real-world writing tasks, but the purpose is to display language proficiency, not the ability to persuade or apologize. In other words, the readers who score the writing are interested more in the linguistic aspects of the writing than in whether they feel persuaded or ready to forgive the writer.

Basic consideration in assessing writing

Language use and language test performance

Writing specific strategies that distinguish notice writers from expert writers ,given equivalent degrees of linguistic knowledge and general strategic competence. Bachman and Palmer point out that, in addition to language knowledge and strategic competence, actual language use in genuine communicative situations involves others considerations: specifically, topical knowledge, personality factors, and affect or emotional factors. As an example, we can return to the example of writing a letter to the editor. Accomplishing this task requires a number of factors other than language knowledge. To begin with, one would need knowledge of the subject under discussion (topical knowledge) and one would need to feel strongly enough about the topic to write about it(affect). In language test, we are primary interested in language ability, not the other components of language use that are involved in actual communication.

Basic consideration in assessing writing

There are many basic consideration in assessing writing test. First of foremost, is test purpose. In choosing or designing a writing test, the logical place to begin is by considering what we plan to use the test for. In other word, why are we interested in testing writing ability - what is our purpose? Bachman and Palmer (1996) discuss two main purposes for language tests, of which we considered writing test can be subset. The primary purpose is to make inferences about language ability, and the secondary purpose is to make decision based on those inferences. That is, since we cannot directly observe a person's language ability, we use his or her responses to test items as data from which we make inferences about the ability that underlies the test performance. These inferences are then used as data for making a variety of decisions at an individual, classroom, or program level.

For Example, let us consider three types of inferences that we can make on the basis of language test:proficiency, diagnosis, and achievement. Leaving aside for the moment a precise definition of language proficiency, we use inferences about general language proficiency to make decisions such as admission to academic programs, placement into different levels of language program,exemption from certain coursework, or selection for a particular job. Inferences about diagnosis- that is, the strengths and weaknesses of individual student - are use primarily by teachers to tailor their instruction to meet their student's needs. Inferences about achievement or the degree to which individuals or groups of students have met specific instructional goals- are use to make decisions about grading and promotion on the individual level, and about modification of instruction on the classroom level. Inferences about achievement are also used on a program-wide or even state or national levels to make decisions about curriculum and funding for programs.

GUIDED WRITING...

The objective of guided -writing test is to check students’ ability to handle controlled or directed writing tasks one way is to make certain kinds of changes in a story (text manipulation) an d to expand the outlines of an article.

Testing specialized skills

Specialized areas often evaluated in writing classes include mechanics and larger elements such as unity and organization. Mechanics covers such things as spelling, punctuation and capitalization.

An old but still acceptable way of checking spelling is to dictate problems words orally.

Changing a passage

Probably no kind of guided-writing test is used more often than that of changing a written passage. Here, it will guide the students in grammatical structures as well.

Another kind of article text is one that uses passive sentences.

Another guided-composition test begins with spoken English that need student to change this into a narrative, using direct quotations.

Building from a paragraph outline

One kind of paragraph outline used for testing writing controls the content and the grammar.

The next form guided essay test relaxes the grammar control the content of the writing but not necessarily the grammar.

We need to decide ahead of time what to evaluate such as the use of complete sentences, agreement of subject and verb, proper inflections (including tense), and basic mechanics. It is good to limit these to only a few criteria.

Alternate forms of guided-writing tests

1. The standard cloze test and the dictation are sometimes also used in a writing class

Advantages of guided writing tests:

1. Guided-writing tests are rather quick and easy to construct.
2. Because they require an active rather than a passive response guided testing techniques give the appearance of being an effective measure of writing.
3. Guided writing test provide appropriate control for those students who are not ready to write on their own.

Limitation of guided writing test:

1. Guided-writing tests do not measure ingredients such as organization found in extended writing.
2. Guided-writing of the paragraph –outline variety is often rather time consuming and difficult to grade.
3. Guided writing of the paragraph-outline variety is difficult to score with real consistency.

LIMITED RESPONSES...

Techniques for evaluating Pre-writing
There are only a few of the technique that can be employed at this stage. We can see it through the following example below that illustrates these five procedures.

1. Sentence combining, a common pre-writing task takes many forms. Combining two sentences using sentence connectors. We can also use subordinators. Combining sentences by having students make internal changes in the grammar and also requires considerable proficiency on the part of student.
2. Sentence expansion involves by simply adding words such as adjectives and adverbs or it can even require adding phrases and clauses.
3. Sentence reduction; often provides a cue word to show how to begin a new phrase.
4. Copying; make students more aware of extended discourses and also mechanics (especially punctuation and spelling). One type of copying task uses an early audio-lingual technique and also the substitution table.
5. Oral cloze; combines dictation with selected cloze using high frequency deletion. Difficult content words or grammar not covered yet can be left intact.

Techniques for evaluating Beginning writing:

There are a few procedures that can be used with beginning writes. Among the limited response techniques is the task of simply changing questions into statement, thus writing a paragraph.

Essay dictation passages can be given a material such as dialogs that students are already familiar with.

Besides that, pictures can also be used to cue the writing of short easy paragraphs for illustrations of these procedures.



Advantages of limited response items:

1. These are generally quite easy to construct.
2. These are suitable for students with limited ability in English.
3. Except for the opened-ended variety, these are rather objective for a writing-related task.
   

Limitations of limited response- items:

1. These do not measure actual writing skill.
2. These can be rather slow to correct-especially the open-ended variety.

HOW TO TEST WRITING...

There are 4 major techniques that can be used to test the writing skill:

1. LIMITED RESPONS
2. GUIDED WRITING
3. DICTATION
4. FREE WRITING

SPECIFICATION FOR WRITING TEST...

Content of specification on testing in writing


1) Operations

Expression of thanks

Requirement
Opinions
Comment
Attitude
Confirmation
Apology
Want/need
Information

Eliciting information

Directions
Service
And all areas above


Test types

Form

Letter
Postcard
Note
Forms

Type

Announcement
Description
Narration
Comment

Addressees unspecified as under topics (below)

Topics

Derived from the following as under topics:
-Shopping and using services
- visiting places of interest and entertainment
- traveling and arranging for travel
- using media for information and entertainment
- Medical attention and health

Obtaining samples that properly represent each candidate’s ability

We should set as many tasks as is feasible by recognizing that from point of view of
Validity the ideal test would be one which required candidates to perform all the relevant potential writing tasks. Besides that, we should offer candidates as many ‘fresh start’ as possible. It can help them to have fresh starts that generate their ideas. The test designers also need to give as many as different tasks as possible make the tests ideal and included the entire task. This has to be balanced against practicality; otherwise we would always include the entire potentials task. It must be remembered, that if we need to know something accurate and meaningful about person’s writing ability, then we have to prepare to pay for that information.