Developing national standards for the assessment of writing. A tool for teaching and learning

1. Developing national standards for the assessment of writing. A tool for teaching and learning Professor Synnøve Matre, Sør-Trøndelag University College Professor Lars S. Evensen, NTNU

2. Background • OECD  key competencies in knowledge societies • 2005 writing tests: low reliability • An interpretative community?  investigate teachers’ norms for assessment

3. Purposes • To carry out in-depth research on specified assessment norms for writing: • study their effects on the quality of pupils’ writing and • study their effects on the quality of teachers’ rating

4. Empirical research questions • which specified norms of assessment can sustainably serve as explicit standards for writing in an educational assessment environment? • which specific effects do the educational integration of shared explicit standards have on the quality of teacher assessment? • which specific effects do the educational integration of shared explicit standards have on the quality of pupils’ writing?

5. Establishing tentative norms:A 2010 pilot study • Twelve schools – 5th and 8th grade • On task think aloud interviews • Derived norms of expectations

6. Writing construct • Tentative norms organized with reference to a theoretical model  The Writing Wheel • Acts of writing + purposes • Semiotic tools for intentional writing

7. Wheel of writing

8. Wheel of writing - work in progress - Wheel of writing Focus on acts and purposes of writing To keep in contact To ponder To convince Cooperation Identity formation Persuasion Tools for Writing Semiotic mediation Creation of textual worlds Know- ledge organization To imagine To describe Knowledge development To explore Writing acts Purposes of writing des. 2010

9. Sign systems Semiotic mediation Text structure Vocabulary and grammar Writing tools Wheel of writing - work in progress - Focus on semiotic mediation To keep in contact To convince To ponder Semiotic tools Written mediation To imagine To describe To explore Writing acts des. 2010

10. Intervention – stage 1 • Refining standards by implementing tentative standards in eight different local learning ecologies

11. Intervention - stage 2 • Investigate local learning ecologies • Qualitative dimensions: substudies B-D • 24 schools

12. Intervention – stage 3 • Compare results in terms of learning outcomes (student writing and teacher assessment) to • Similar results from the forthcoming national assessment of writing as a key competency, i.e. intervention schools compared to non-intervention schools • Ouantitative dimensions: substudies E-F

13. Financial and organizational key info • Participants • Eight scholars from five different Norwegian universities/colleges • An affiliated group in New Zealand, representing the assessment for learning group at the University of Auckland and the Educational Assessment Research Unit at University of Otago • Funding • The research is funded by The Research Council of Norway and Sør-Trøndelag University College with support from co-operating institutions: NTNU, University of Oslo, University of Agder, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences.

14. Contact us • http://www.skrivesenteret.no/prosjekt/developing-national-standards-for-the-teaching-and-assessment-of-writing • synnove.matre@hist.no • lars.evensen@ntnu.no