Assessing Student Writing Competence

NEW for 2008: Click here to see how GMU is responding to a new state mandate for value-added assessment of written competence.

In response to a state mandate, the Writing Assessment Group, with the assistance of the Office of Institutional Assessment, is working with faculty across the university to assess student writing competence in the majors. This assessment process, which occurs at the departmental level, gives us valuable information about our students' writing abilities but also, and perhaps more importantly, provides a venue for faculty to talk about their goals and expectations for student writers. The group was convened in Fall 2000 by the Office of the Provost and became a standing committee in 2002 with the charge of proposing and implementing a process for assessing students' writing competence. The group consists of faculty representing each of the colleges with undergraduate majors.

The motivation for convening the group was threefold: 1) a sense that many of our upper-level students are not writing at a level satisfactory to faculty; 2) the approval of the new general education synthesis requirement and the attendant proposal for an examining board to determine a student's writing competency (among other competencies)*; and 3) a mandate from the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia for all Virginia institutions to submit a plan defining standards of writing competency and for measuring competency, collecting data, and reporting results. *Note: The mandate for an examining Board has since been rescinded though the writing-intensive synthesis requirement is still in place.

In response to these needs, the Writing Assessment Group laid out a four part assessment strategy:

Part 1: Faculty Survey
Designed and administered a Faculty Survey on Student Writing (CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SURVEY IN .PDF FORMAT. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your machine, click here.)

Part 2: Workshop Materials
Held a holistic scoring workshop to engage faculty from across the disciplines in a widely-used and validated procedure for measuring writing competence. Besides helping the participants to hone their own standards of student writing competence, the workshop provided a model that participants may use with their colleagues as they work toward determining departmental standards for student writing. This workshop served as a pilot which is being modified and repeated as curriculum development continues.
CLICK HERE FOR .PDF FORMAT. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your machine, click here.)

Click on the following links for information we provide in our workshop packet (.doc format):

• rationale
• holistic scoring
• discussion prompts
• report formats
• faculty survey

For the scoring workshop, faculty were given sample student papers written in sections of English 302, an advanced writing in the disciplines course required of all students. The papers were collected and samples randomly chosen. Students wrote in response to a standardized assignment prompt for a literature review, designed by the Director of Composition in collaboration with the Writing Assessment Group. (CLICK HERE FOR THE 302 ASSESSMENT ASSIGNMENT IN .PDF FORMAT. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your machine, click here.)

Part 3: Scoring in the Majors
Faculty who participated in the holistic scoring workshop are using the model to work with a group of faculty in their home departments. Each department is holding scoring sessions, using a standardized assignment typical of writing in their particular major. To score effectively, faculty need to determine what assignment to give students, write clear assignment directions, and give responsibility to all faculty for collecting samples. In department workshops, faculty develop a rubric for scoring with criteria relevant to the major and the assignment. They use this to score their papers. Click on the following links for department rubrics:

• Click here for a Powerpoint Tour of Assessment Posters

Part 4: Departments Reporting Results
Many departments have already reported the results of their scoring sessions to the Office of Institutional Assessment. To see those reports, which are not publically available, contact Karen Gentemann, Office of Insitutional Assessment, or the departmental liason (see below for list).

Art and Visual Technology: Claire MacDonald
Communication: Anita Taylor
English: Robert Matz
Philosophy and Religious Studies: Ted Kinnaman (Philosophy), John Burns (Religious Studies)
School of Management: Beth Schneider
College of Nursing and Health Science: Susan Durham
Psychology: Jim Sanford
Public and International Affairs: Pris Regan

The Writing Assessment Group is working with the reported data to determine the best and most effective way to interpret the data and report institutional results.

The first cycle of assessment results have been reported to the State Council of Higher Education. To see that report, click on http://roie.schev.edu/

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