THE PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT STUDY IN WRITING: ANALYSIS OF THE SAT^®II: WRITING SUBJECT TEST

Abstract

In all of its activities, the Board promotes equity through universal access to high standards of teaching and learning and sufficient financial resources so that every student has the opportunity to succeed in college and work.The College Board champions-by means of superior research; curricular development; assessment; guidance, placement, and admission information; professional development; forums; policy analysis; and public outreacheducational excellence for all students.

Writing Assessment in Admission to Higher Education: Review and Framework

“…A more recent study (Breland et al, 1999) examined each SAT II: Writing Subject Test component, as well as the composite score, as a predictor of various criteria, including fall English grades. Weighted average correlations for predicting fall English grades at eight colleges were .28 for the essay and .39 for the multiple-choice component, while the composite score weighted average correlation was 049.…”

“…The more recent Breland et al (1999) study also used a writing performance criterion. Unlike the criteria used by both Godshalk et al (1966) and Breland et al (1987), in which all subjects wrote on the same topics, the criteria used for this study consisted of various samples of writing produced in English courses of participating institutions.…”

“…A measure consisting of two essays, timed at 40 minutes and 60 minutes, yielded a much higher correlation (.59) with the self-reported composite score. Breland et al (1999) also examined student selfreports as criteria. Table 5 shows that a self-report composite score correlated .46 with the SAT II: Writing Subject Test multiple-choice score, .43 with the SAT II: Writing Subject Test essay score, and .51 with the SAT II: Writing Subject Test composite score.…”

“…Grades and instructors' ratings, however, yield predictive validities slightly less for two-essay assessments than for single-essay plus multiple-choice assessments. Table 8 shows a comparison of three of the four types of writing assessments using the results from the Breland et al (1999) study. Unfortunately, there were no data for two-essay assessments in this study, since the data were for the SAT II: Writing Subject Test, which used only a single 20-minute essay.…”

The Effect of Student Receptivity to Instructional Feedback on Writing Proficiency among Chinese Speaking English Language Learners

“…Smith claims, "Almost without exception, students who intimately know the FPE are more prepared to take on the challenge of college-level writing" (Smith, 2006, p. 16). Furthermore, Breland, Kubota, and Bonner (1999) have shown that student performance on the SAT II Single-Subject test in writing, which requires at least a basic understanding of the FPE model, accurately predicts a college freshman's first year grade point average.…”