| This study investigates whether raters' cultural influence is a source of rater-text interaction in L2 writing assessment. Twenty-seven ESL/EFL teachers participated in the study. They were divided into three groups: raters who are American but have never been to China; raters who are American and have taught English in China for more than one year; and raters who are Chinese native speakers. All raters received rater training before rating. In the rating experiment, all raters assigned a score on a scale from 1 to 5, judged the best and worst feature of the essays, and provided some comments. No significant differences were found between the scores given by the two groups of American raters, but significant differences between the Chinese raters and the two groups of American raters were obtained. The qualitative data, which consisted mainly of the raters' comments, demonstrated that each group of raters attended to different aspects of the essays. The paper also discusses the possible influences of raters' cultural background on the scoring of second writing assessment. Finally, limitations of the study and suggestions for future studies of raters in writing assessment are given by the researcher. |
