Developing national standards for the assessment of writing. A tool for teaching and learning

Professor Synnøve Matre, Sør-Trøndelag University CollegeProfessor Lars S. Evensen, NTNU

Background

OECD key competencies in knowledge societies

2005 writing tests: low reliability

An interpretative community? investigate teachers’ norms for assessment

Purposes

To carry out in-depth research on specified assessment norms for writing: – study their effects on the quality of pupils’ writing and – study their effects on the quality of teachers’ rating

Empirical research questions

which specified norms of assessment can sustainably serve as explicit standards for writing in an educational assessment environment?

which specific effects do the educational integration of shared explicit standards have on the quality of teacher assessment?

which specific effects do the educational integration of shared explicit standards have on the quality of pupils’ writing?

Establishing tentative norms:A 2010 pilot study

Twelve schools – 5th and 8th grade

On task think aloud interviews

Derived norms of expectations

Writing construct

Tentative norms organized with reference to a theoretical model The Writing Wheel

Acts of writing + purposes

Semiotic tools for intentional writing

Wheel of writing

Cooperation

Know- ledge

organization

Knowledge development

Persuasion

Writing acts

Tools for

Writing

Purposes of writing

Creation of textual

worlds

Identity formation

To keep in contact

To ponder

To describe

To explore

To imagine

To convince

Wheel of writing Focus on acts and purposes of writing

Wheel of writing - work in progress -

des. 2010

Semiotic tools

WrittenWrittenmediationmediation

To keep in contact

To ponder

To explore

To

imagine

Writing tools

Text structure

Sign systems

Vocabulary and grammar

SemioticSemioticmediationmediation

des. 2010

Wheel of writing - work in progress -

Focus on semiotic mediation

Writing acts

To

de

scrib

e

To

co

nvin

ce

Intervention – stage 1

Refining standards by implementing tentative standards in eight different local learning ecologies

Intervention - stage 2

Investigate local learning ecologies

Qualitative dimensions: substudies B-D

24 schools

Intervention – stage 3

Compare results in terms of learning outcomes (student writing and teacher assessment) to– Similar results from the forthcoming national assessment of

writing as a key competency, i.e. intervention schools compared to non-intervention schools

Ouantitative dimensions: substudies E-F

Financial and organizational key info

Participants– Eight scholars from five different Norwegian universities/colleges– An affiliated group in New Zealand, representing the assessment

for learning group at the University of Auckland and the Educational Assessment Research Unit at University of Otago

Funding– The research is funded by The Research Council of Norway and

Sør-Trøndelag University College with support from co-operating institutions: NTNU, University of Oslo, University of Agder, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences.

Contact us

http://www.skrivesenteret.no/prosjekt/developing-national-standards-for-the-teaching-and-assessment-of-writing

synnove.matre@hist.no

lars.evensen@ntnu.no