Assessing High-Stakes Writing Performan...

The main aim of our study is to investigate the (quantitative and qualitative) extent to which negative features (errors) contribute to ratings (as opposed to, or in combination with, positive ones). This translates into one major (research) question which needs to be answered in order to achieve this aim: whether in rating writing performances one can observe the apparently opposing foci on positive and negative features as complementary – in essence that either focus (or a combination of both) would produce similar ratings (following the intuitive idea that if something is not negative then it is positive). An additional aim is to investigate to what extent the raters’ judgements are affected by their individual interpretation of given descriptors, which should be context-independent, but are often affected by socio-cultural backgrounds (e.g., experience, cultural/educational background).