Test Method Effect On Writing Performance

The main objective of this thesis was to investigate the test method effect of two writing tests on the performances of sixty sophomore English majors from China University of Mining and Technology, who were divided randomly into two experiment groups and took reading-integrated writing test and timed impromptu essay test respectively. Their essays were rated anonymously by two independent raters using the same rating scale with categories that measured content, organization, accuracy and vocabulary. Besides examination of the reliability and the construct validity, Many-Faceted Rasch analysis was applied to probe into the influence of students' writing ability, domain difficulty, rater severity, and raters' application of rating scale on the final results of the two tests.Results of the comparison revealed five important findings: First, both two tests were reliable to be fair measures for assessing writing abilities. Second, MTMM matrix proved that the reading-integrated writing test measured a unique construct totally different from writing without source materials. Third, significant difference was found between two groups in content, organization, and vocabulary, but no difference was observed in accuracy. Fourth, the reading tasks facilitate participants in generating ideas, organizing essays and using vocabularies. Finally, participants in the reading-integrated writing test paid more attention to the content in the writing process, but participants in the timed impromptu essay tests met difficulties in using their vocabularies in the writing process.Findings implicated that (1) reading-integrated writing assessment could be an alternative to timed impromptu essay test in academic contexts, because of its authenticity and positive washback effect;(2) more attention should be paid to the instruction and learning of writing so that students could improve their ability of organizing ideas in a coherent way to express their ideas;and (3) much more investigation was still needed to probe into the writing process and read-to-write process.