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Writing evaluation: rater and task effects on the reliability of writing scores for children in Grades 3 and 4

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Abstract

We examined how raters and tasks influence measurement error in writing evaluation and how many raters and tasks are needed to reach a desirable level of .90 and .80 reliabilities for children in Grades 3 and 4. A total of 211 children (102 boys) were administered three tasks in narrative and expository genres, respectively, and their written compositions were evaluated in widely used evaluation methods for developing writers: holistic scoring, productivity, and curriculum-based writing scores. Results showed that 54 and 52% of variance in narrative and expository compositions were attributable to true individual differences in writing. Students’ scores varied largely by tasks (30.44 and 28.61% of variance), but not by raters. To reach the reliability of .90, multiple tasks and raters were needed, and for the reliability of .80, a single rater and multiple tasks were needed. These findings offer important implications about reliably evaluating children’s writing skills, given that writing is typically evaluated by a single task and a single rater in classrooms and even in some state accountability systems.

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Notes

  1. Children were given 15 min based on our experiences with elementary grade children. CBM writing assessments (e.g., writing tasks) typically have shorter assessment times (e.g., 3 min). This does not present a validity issue in the present study because the purpose of our study was examining reliability of various evaluation approaches including CBM writing indicators, not a particular CBM writing test (e.g., picture task) per se.

  2. Facets are measurement features or sources of variation such as person, rater, and task.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant No. P50HD052120). The authors wish to thank participating schools, teachers, and students.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Irvine, 3500 Education Building, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    Young-Suk Grace Kim

  2. Florida Center for Reading Research, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Christopher Schatschneider

  3. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Jeanne Wanzek

  4. Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Brandy Gatlin

  5. Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA

    Stephanie Al Otaiba

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  1. Young-Suk Grace Kim
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  2. Christopher Schatschneider
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Correspondence to Young-Suk Grace Kim.

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Kim, YS.G., Schatschneider, C., Wanzek, J. et al. Writing evaluation: rater and task effects on the reliability of writing scores for children in Grades 3 and 4. Read Writ 30, 1287–1310 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-017-9724-6

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