Analytic Scoring Of Writing: Diagnosing The Discrepancy Between Different Levels

Writing can be seen as the most direct demonstration of the learners’ language ability,which usually assesses learners’ compressible usage of language organization, the grammar,and vocabulary. For second and foreign language learners, different aspects of the languageability develop at different rates for different writers. Previous research focused more on theglobal writing ability and error analysis of the learners. However, there are few studies on thestrength and weakness of learners’ writing ability as well as their discrepancy.This study, based on the analytic scoring rubric, employs SPSS and FACETS to analyze300writing scripts of freshman in Hunan University to explore the differences betweendifferent levels, which meant to provide the learners with diagnostic information on theirwriting. The study firstly adopts regression analysis to detect the contribution made by eachwriting component, then it assesses the difficulty index and differentiation index of theanalytic scoring rubric by FACET analysis, finally combined with10specific writings fromeach level, the study analyzes the discrepancy between different levels with T-test.The results of this study are listed as follows:(1) The analytic scoring rubric used in thisstudy can well assess the examinees’ writing performance with a moderate differentiation;(2)Components of Task and Grammar contribute the most to the overall writing performance,which imply that the examinees have more problems in the fulfillment of the writing task andthe grammatical expression;(3) The discrepancy of different scales lie in differentcomponents: the main differences between010and020lie in Task, Grammar and Punctuation;the differences between020and030lie in Task, Grammar and Format; while the differencesbetween030and040results from Task, Grammar and Vocabulary; and there are significantdifferences on Task, Punctuation and Format between040and050.The results indicate the uneven development of the examinees’ foreign language ability.Therefore, learners of different levels should apply different learning plans. Learners of lowscales should pay more attention on their grammar as well as the fulfillment of the taskdemand, while learners of high levels should make more effort on the organization and therichness of their writing. The study provides the theoretical base for college placementteaching. Finally the limitations and implications for further research are introduced.