Development and Validation of a Diagnostic Rating Scale for EFL Writing in China

Abstract

Diagnostic assessment of EFL writing ability is useful yet seldom adopted for Chinese EFL students. In line with this urge, this study intends to design and validate a diagnostic rating scale for EFL writing in China. This rating scale is adapted from China’s Standards of English Language Ability (CSE in short) for an argumentative writing assignment of College English III students at a key university in Eastern China. To collect data for validation, four raters were asked to score 67 compositions utilizing the rating scale. A multi-facet Rasch analysis was employed to investigate the validity of the rating scale. Three facets—examinee, rater, and criteria—basically accord with the ideal requirements. Comparing our validated rating scale and rating scales for writing assessment designed in other contexts, the importance of setting rating scales in a specific context is demonstrated. Additionally, our context-specific, CSE-based rating scale once again corroborates the versatility of CSE. This study provides a meaningful examination of the appropriate form of a rating scale for diagnostic assessment in China.