Read-to-write tasks for the assessment of second language academic writing skills: Investigating text features and rater reactions

Many writing assignments in higher education require students to integrate information gathered from multiple reading materials. However, few empirical studies have investigated the use of multiple reading passages in the second language writing assessment.; The purpose of this dissertation study was to investigate the evaluation of multiple-reading-based compositions by examining three data sources simultaneously: ratings, student texts, and rater reactions. Each of the 47 incoming international graduate students at the University of Hawaii wrote on three prompts as part of an ESL placement test. They were a traditional non-source prompt and two "read-to-write" prompts each providing five short source readings on a topic.; Multi-faceted Rasch models were used to analyze the reliability and validity of the read-to-write prompts. Read-to-write essays (N = 94) were analyzed in terms of length, the use of source ideas and original ideas, the use of quotation marks and citation, and essay level organization. Protocol analysis of rater talk-aloud data and interview data was also conducted to investigate what text features were paid attention to and valued by raters.; The study found that the read-to-write essays can be scored reliably, and it is primarily a measure of writing ability rather than reading ability. Less than half of the essay content was found to have originated in sources. However, less than 10 percent of the essays had an original thesis. The others had a very general thesis, a thesis based on a main idea in a source, or no thesis that had been consistently discussed in the essay. Most students used quotation marks and cited sources when they quoted source materials word for word, but not when they modified the materials even in small ways. A profile of highly-rated read-to-write essays included these features: (1) a clear introduction with a thesis (not necessarily original), (2) a few paragraph of body each discussing an aspect of the thesis using a source (cite at least minimally-required two sources in total) and own idea (e.g., personal experience or comment), (3) a concluding paragraph, (4) and sufficient length overall.