The process-oriented ESL writing assessment: Promises and challenges

This study examines a process-oriented ESL writing assessment called the Computerized Enhanced ESL Placement Test (CEEPT). The CEEPT at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign or its non-computerized alternative (EEPT) have since 2000 offered a daylong process-oriented writing assessment in which test takers are given extended time to plan, produce, and revise an essay. This study examines how 100 English as a Second Language (ESL) students take up the opportunity in this assessment procedure to reflect, interact with others, and revise their essays. Specifically, this study investigates what level of revision test takers focused on as well as the extent to which the quality of written products differed between first and second drafts. Results of this study showed that students produced their final drafts in a more coherent manner with complex sentences, as indicated by increased analytic as well as holistic scores, T-units, and a global level of revision. Extracts from essays whose scores increased, stayed the same, and decreased are presented to give a richer sense of how changes in the measures reflected writers' revisions. This study thus offers insights into a serious attempt to translate a richer and more complex, process-oriented understanding of writing into a large institutional writing assessment. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.