The ethical turn in writing assessment: how far have we come, and where do we still need to go?
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Date
2023
Authors
East, Martin
Slomp, David
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Cambridge Core
Abstract
Both of us were drawn into the writing assessment field initially through our lived experiences as schoolteachers. We worked in radically different contexts – Martin was head of a languages department and teacher of French and German in the late 1990s in the UK, and David was a Grade 12 teacher of Academic English in Alberta, Canada, at the turn of the twenty-first century. In both these contexts, the traditional direct test of writing – referred to, for example, as the ‘timed impromptu writing test’ (Weigle, 2002, p. 59) or the ‘snapshot approach’ (Hamp-Lyons & Kroll, 1997, p. 18) – featured significantly in our practices, albeit in very different ways. This form of writing assessment still holds considerable sway across the globe. For us, however, it provoked early questions and concerns around the consequential and ethical aspects of writing assessment.
Description
Open access article. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0 DEED) applies
Keywords
Writing assessment , Writing ability , Writing tests , Assessment development , Assessment design
Citation
East, M., & Slomp, D. (2023). The ethical turn in writing assessment: How far have we come, and where do we still need to go? Language Teaching, 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444823000034