188 / 2018-03-30 16:28:03

Theory-based approach to writing assessment: A conceptual framework for assessment design and development

theory-based, academic writing, assessment design

全体主题 > Standards in developing language assessments

Unlike in many of the western educational systems where writing figures prominently in educational assessment practices, the evaluation of students’ educational progress and achievement in China still depends heavily, and almost exclusively, on the use of timed tests. The extensive use of such tests, however, leads to a general lack of writing ability among Chinese students. In EFL teaching and learning, this problem is especially salient, and is seen as “directly affecting [Chinese students'] research and learning ability at the postgraduate level” (Zhang, 2010, p.311). To help Chinese students develop their EFL writing ability, therefore, programs and instructors should adopt more alternative evaluative means that would encourage students to actively develop their writing skills in the process of learning content knowledge. Adequate writing ability is especially important at the tertiary level, as Hyland (2013) succinctly points out that “universities are ABOUT writing” and “academic literacy [is] at the heart of everything we do” (p.53) in higher education.

In addition to the employment of alternative evaluative means within individual programs or classroom settings, large scale high-stakes EFL tests may also consider designing and developing alternative writing assessments that would introduce a positive washback on the teaching and learning of academic writing. An examination of the current writing assessment practices, however, seems to suggest that unlike measurement theory, “writing theory has had a minimal influence on writing assessment” (Behizadeh & Engelhard, 2011, p. 189; Crusan, 2014). Consequently, the most often employed writing task, other than the earlier discrete point test items, is still the prompt-based single essay writing. However, assessment specialists have long called into question the usefulness of impromptu essay writing in response to a single prompt (Cho, 2003; Crusan, 2014). As a response to the above observation among colleagues about the lack of theoretical support and generalizability of results in our current writing assessment practices, this paper seeks to outline the design and development process of an alternative academic writing assessment at the tertiary level based on three theoretical conceptions of writing ability. Illustrating the design process with justifications for each decision made based on considerations of these theoretical models and contextual factors helps present, step-wise, a new standards- or theory-based approach to academic writing assessment. The final product of this work, a cognitive process-based academic writing test, would also be of pedagogical and practical use to writing instructors and test developers alike.