College of Education, Graduate Writing Assessment Information
HISTORY
The faculty of the COE voted to replace the Miller's Analogy Test (MAT) and the Graduate Records Examination (GRE) with an on-site writing assessment. This change went into effect January 1, 2007. From that point on, neither the MAT nor the GRE would be accepted for admission into a COE graduate program. Applicants may retake the assessment if they made an unsatisfactory score.
APPLICANTS REQUIRED TO WRITE THE ASSESSMENT
All applicants for degree programs must take the writing assessment. If a student has passed the writing assessment for admission for a master's degree, that person does not have to retake it when applying for a specialist's degree. Please check with the COEGraduate Admissions Counselor to see if the Graduate Writing Assessment is required for a specificnon-degree program.
PETITIONS
When application packets are complete, including writing assessment scores, they are sent to individual program committees for acceptance decisions. If an applicant has not made a satisfactory score on the writing assessment, but all other components of the packet are acceptable, the program committee may petition the dean for an exception. If a program committee petitions for a student, a specific plan of action for helping that student must be submitted with the petition. Specific and valid reasons for requesting a petition should also be included.
If a program committee denies admission to an applicant, the applicant may petition the dean for an exception.
All petitions must be supported with excellent evidence as to why an exception should be made.
PROMPT DEVELOPMENT
Prompts are developed and reviewed by members of the writing assessment training committee.
SCORING
Scoring of the writing assessments is done by blind reading. Each paper is holistically scored by two readers. If the readers agree, then the score is the one recorded for the applicant. If, however, the two readers disagree on the score for a paper,it will be read by a third reader.
READERS
All readers must attend reader training sessions. These sessions help develop benchmark papers and assure inter-reader-rater-reliability. Readers use a rubric for scoring assessments.
QUALITY CONTROL
Members of the writing assessment training committee reread randomly selected papers to validate reader reliability. These readings occur after each assessment date.
HELP FOR APPLICANTS
Applicants who want help on the writing assessment are given these options:
Access to the "Graduate Writing Assessment Advice Sheet" on this website.
Access to group help sessions. One is scheduled in both fall and spring semesters. Please see the writing assessment website for the dates for this year.
Since the writing assessment is a summative rather than formative measure, individual analysis will not be given to applicants concerning their personal assessments.
DATA
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
