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សាកលវទ្យាល័
យបញ្ញាសាស្រ្តកម្ពុជា
Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia

Introduction to Classroom
Assessment and Evaluation

Unit 8
Testing Writing

Lecturer: Koemhong SOL

Think for one minute...

What is the best way

to test someone’s
writing ability?
 Key Considerations When
Developing Writing Test
1. We have to set writing tasks that are
properly representative of the
population of tasks that we should
expect the students to be able to perform.
2. The tasks should elicit valid samples of
writing (i.e., which truly represent the
students’ ability).
3. It is essential that the samples of writing
can and will be scored validly and
reliably.
 Representative Tasks
1. Specify all possible content (Test
specifications: operations [also referred to
as skills], types of text, addressees, length of
texts, topics, dialect and style)
Representative Tasks (cont.)
2. Include a representative sample of the
specified content (see examples, pp. 86-88)
People will simply be better at some tasks than
others. So, if we aren’t able to include every task
(and of course this is normally the case) and
happen to choose just the task or tasks that a
candidate is particularly good (or bad) at, then the
outcome is likely to be very different. This is why
we try to select a representative set of tasks
 Elicit a Valid Sample of Writing
Ability
• Set as many separate tasks as is feasible –
This is related to the inclusion of
representative samples.
• Test only writing ability, and nothing else
– We should not set tasks which measure
whether students are creative,
imaginative, or even intelligent, have wide
general knowledge, or have good reasons
for the opinions they happen to hold.
 Elicit a Valid Sample of Writing
Ability (cont.)
• Restrict candidates
 Ensure Valid and Reliable Scoring
▪ Set tasks which can be reliably scored
(discussed above)
▪ Set as many tasks as possible
▪ Restrict candidates
▪ Give no choice of tasks (For example, in a
class, everyone needs to take the same test
and perform the same tasks.)
▪ Ensure long enough samples (e.g., at least 250
words for an essay)
▪ Create appropriate scales for scoring (holistic
or analytic) – See examples, pp. 95-104
 Ensure Valid and Reliable Scoring
(cont.)
▪ Calibrate the scale to be used (collect
samples of performance under test
conditions, samples that cover the full
range of the scales, assign each of them
to a point, use the reference points to
mark all future papers and for training)
▪ Select and train scorers (see pp. 106-
107)
▪ Follow acceptable scoring procedures
Feedback
 References
1. Hughes, A. (2003). Testing for language teachers
(2nd). Cambridge University Press.