Anchor paper selection procedures and their impact on direct writing assessment: A case in point
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of procedures used to assess Tennessee students' writing from 1993 to 1998 and to determine how changes in the procedures, or variations from the procedures as they are outlined in the TCAP Writing Assessment Technical Manual, may have effected the distribution of scores. A case study was done to analyze the data from the effected years of testing and the Technical Manual was reviewed to determine which procedures had been violated. The data was analyzed using correlations and z-tests, and a 3 x 5 repeated-measures ANOVA. The system means were used and compared across years by region and demographic designation. The data revealed that the anchor papers were not representative of the entire student population and the means for regions and areas most highly represented by the anchor papers were also higher. Since the anchor papers were not randomly selected, the means for the systems may not be accurate. The writer of this research was an Educational Consultant for the State Testing and Evaluation Center and was involved in with the writing assessment program. The technical manual used for the writing assessment was primarily written by this researcher.
Subject Area
Educational evaluation|Rhetoric|Composition
Recommended Citation
Donna Hooper Matthews,
"Anchor paper selection procedures and their impact on direct writing assessment: A case in point"
(2000).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI3007566.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI3007566