Planning your assessment (Week 5)

Welcome - This is the first step to the final project!

a. Purpose (What are you measuring?)

This assessment measures academic writing skills in college students. It focuses on how clearly and effectively students can write using proper grammar, logical ideas, smooth flow, and clear structure. The goal is to understand how strong a student’s writing is and where they can improve.

b.Target Audience (Who is this for?)

This assessment is for undergraduate college students. It is used by instructors in writing or general education courses. The tool is used in a classroom setting to help teachers evaluate student writing.

c. Specific Outcomes to Measure (What kind of thing?)

This assessment mainly measures skills, specifically writing ability. It also looks at behaviors, such as how students organize their ideas and apply writing rules. The focus is on what students can actually produce in their writing.

d. Example From Real Life (Find an existing measure)

One example is the AAC&U VALUE Rubric for Written Communication, which evaluates student writing based on structure, clarity, and grammar. Another example is the IELTS Writing test, which measures writing ability using categories like coherence and grammar. Both use rubric-style scoring similar to this project.

Model and Tool selections (Week 6)

a. Name the assessment or evaluation framework you will use.

This project uses Evidence-Centered Design (ECD). This framework helps connect what you want to measure, the evidence you collect, and how you interpret the results.

b. Justification (Why does this framework fit?)

Evidence-Centered Design fits this project because it keeps everything aligned and clear. It helps make sure the rubric actually measures writing skills and not something unrelated. It also makes it easier to explain where scores come from and why they matter. This framework is useful because it focuses directly on assessment design. Other frameworks are more general, but ECD is better for building a tool like this.

c. Implications for Tool Design (What kind of measurement will you design?)

Using ECD means the tool will be a rubric-based assessment. It will use clear scoring categories like grammar, logic, fluency, and structure. The tool is mainly formative, so it helps students improve instead of just giving a final grade. It uses numbers for scores but also gives simple feedback to explain results.