Characteristics of Student Writing Competence: An Investigation of Alternative Scoring Systems

This study compared three alternative methods for placing post-secondary students into freshman English or remedial writing classes. The study contrasted: (1) a proposed system-wide test combining multiple choice and essay scores; (2) the holistic essay scoring procedures used at separate university campuses; (3) an analytic scoring rubric developed at a university-based research center. The study examined the comparability of scores obtained from the three methods and the placement decisions they implied.

Three hundred eight high school seniors from two university campuses took an experimental version of the proposed system-wide placement examination. Generally, relationships were low among scores from the different testing methods, and substantially different proportions of students were classified as masters or non-masters. These findings were interpreted as evidence that “good” writing does not consistently emerge, regardless of the test used and that systematic selection of placement measures requires detailed scrutiny of the reliability and validity of placement standards, scoring criteria and their emphasis on essay features.