Writing assessment in higher education

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Callies ◽  
Ekaterina Zaytseva ◽  
Rebecca L. Present-Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Assessment ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
Assessment Methods ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Common ◽  
Assessment In Higher Education

The importance of appropriate assessment methods for academic writing skills in higher education has received increasing attention in SLA research in recent years. Despite this, there is still relatively little understanding of how academic writing skills develop at the most advanced levels of proficiency. Use of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is one way to ensure the comparability of findings across research efforts and continue to move the field forward. This paper presents some key concepts and definitions from the fields of SLA and advancedness research, language assessment and corpus linguistics and introduces several papers that address writing assessment within the context of higher education.

scholarly journals Improving Academic Writing Skills through Online Mode of Task-Based Assignments

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 74
Author(s):  
Sugeng Purwanto
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Problem Area ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
English Class ◽  
Online Mode ◽  
Central Java ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Republic

<p>This is to report a 2-Year Research Project (2015-2016) funded by the Directorate General of Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia, which aims at justifying whether or not the online mode of task-based writing assignments (of various genres of English texts) could improve the writing skills of the students at higher education. An action research was conducted in College of Economics and Business Studies, Stikubank University (UNISBANK) Semarang, Central Java Indonesia in response to the lack of time allocated to students’ writing activities in their English class. Three cycles of treatments were employed—each with five phases, (1) identification of problem area, (2) collection and organization of data, (3) interpretation of data, (4) action based on data and (5) reflection of action. The findings showed that—compared with the initial condition— there was a mean increase of 31% and an increase of 121% in the students’ scores beyond the passing score of 61. Also, the students’ writing motivation increased considerably (&gt;86% toward positive attitudes) as revealed in the survey at the end of the treatment program.</p>

scholarly journals THE CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE WRITING SKILLS FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES IN STUDENTS IN THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-459
Author(s):  
Ivana Trajanoska ◽  
Marija Andonova
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Spring Semester ◽  
The Republic

Leonard J. Rosen defines academic writing as an “informed, logical, clear, well structured, and based on evidence” (Rosen, 2009) prose style which serves to describe, understand, and further investigate the world around us. Academic writing rests upon common standards of logic and clarity which enable writers to enter into a conversation through their writing. Developing effective writing skills for academic purposes is a crucial aspect of higher education. These skills are indispensable for the students since they affect their overall academic success, but also their life outside the university. The present paper deals with the challenges of developing effective writing skills for academic purposes in the Macedonian language in students in the Republic of North Macedonia. It presents a part of the findings of a five-year research conducted at the higher education institution University American College Skopje (UACS). The aim of the research is to explore the gap between the expected already acquired writing skills at secondary school and the writing skills for academic purposes the students should develop in higher education. The present paper presents the data obtained from the self-evaluation process conducted from spring semester 2015 until spring semester 2019. The quantitative research method was used in the research and the quantitative data obtained were analyzed, textually interpreted, and visually presented. Twenty nine point three percent of the students said that they knew how to write a short essay where they would present evidence for a point of view and 32.4% said that they are not sure how to do this. Even though writing an essay (titled “project assignment”) is a required part of the mandatory State Baccalaureate (Matura) exam since 2010 and all students had completed it in order to enroll at University, 38.3% of the students involved in the research said that they do not know how to do this.

Criterial Features in Learner Corpora: Theory and Illustrations

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Hawkins ◽  
Paula Buttery
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Collaborative Research ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Learner Corpora ◽  
First Languages ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Impact

AbstractOne of the major goals of the Cambridge English Profile Programme is to identify ‘criterial features’ for each of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) proficiency levels as they apply to English, and to assess the impact of different first languages on these features (through ‘transfer’ effects). The present paper defines what is meant by criterial features and proposes an initial taxonomy of four types. Numerous illustrations are given from our collaborative research to date on the Cambridge Learner Corpus. The benefits and challenges posed by these features for corpus linguistics and for theories of second language acquisition are briefly outlined, as are the benefits and challenges for language assessment practices and for publishing ventures that make use of them as supplements to the current CEFR descriptors.

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