Training instructors to make reliable judgements of EFL writing

Han, Turgay and Sahan, Ozgur (2017) Training instructors to make reliable judgements of EFL writing. International Conference of Strategic Research in Social Science and Education, , Prague, Czech Republic. 13 - 14 May 2017.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Although it is not considered to be as flexible and practical as other training programs, face-to- face rater training for writing assessment is a convenient way of training instructors due to its accessibility to the trainer for detailed discussions through the training process. This paper examines the impact of rater training on the reliability of EFL writing assessment in a Turkish university context. A group of 8 Turkish teachers of EFL were divided into two groups of 4 and all the instructors initially rated a set of 8 compositions to see the initial
ratings of the instructors before the training. While four instructors received detailed rater training, the other four instructors were only oriented to use the 10-point analytic scale. All the instructors rated the same 8 compositions given as a pre-scoring at the beginning of the study. Immediately after the rating process, they responded to a set of interview questions to investigate their attitudes towards the training. The results indicated that the rater training was overall effective.

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