This article provides information about the results available from the eWrite assessment. The following topics are covered here:
- Scale scores
- Criterion scores
- Bands
- Marking guide and response exemplars
- Unscoreable responses
- Supporting documents
Related article: eWrite reports
Scale scores
eWrite scale scores are estimates of student ability, as measured by the assessment. The scale scores from eWrite can be used to make direct comparisons between eWrite tasks, which means they can be used to track student progress in writing over time. When comparing scale scores, it should always be borne in mind that every test score has some degree of measurement error. This means that two scores that are close together may not indicate a significant difference.
Criterion scores
The individual criterion scores can be used to gauge specific strengths or weaknesses in sub-skills of writing, such as sentence punctuation. These scores in particular can be used as the basis for teachers to provide detailed feedback to students about what they did well in their writing, and what their next steps ought to be in order to improve.
Bands
The eWrite scale is divided into bands that cover the range of student writing achievement from year 5 to year 8, as it relates to this assessment. The eWrite scale is divided into seven bands (Band 3 or below to Band 9 or above). eWrite achievement band descriptions are linked at the bottom of this page.
The bands were established using student distribution data from the trial phase and the relative difficulty of the categories on the marking guide. They provide a way to aggregate and summarise the performance of a group of students on eWrite assessments. A class teacher might make decisions about differentiation in future writing activities based on band groupings, for example by assigning modified tasks to groups of students who scored in the same band. For example:
Achievement band 6 | Scale score 430 to 479
Students in this band are able to express ideas with generally accurate use of sentence punctuation and spelling. They provide sufficient elaboration of the main ideas using mostly precise vocabulary. Their text structures reflect the typical structures required of the text type.
Students in a band are typically able to demonstrate all the skills in lower bands. If a particular criterion is not mentioned in a band’s description, teachers should interpret that as the student having demonstrated the ability to the level described in lower bands. For example, sentence punctuation is not described in any band above Band 6, but teachers can safely assume that typical students in Bands 7, 8 and 9 and above will demonstrate accurate sentence punctuation because the Band 6 description includes the ability to ‘express ideas with accurate use of sentence punctuation’.
Marking guide and response exemplars
The eWrite marking guide (linked at the bottom of this page) details the scoring rubrics applied to students' writing. Simple descriptions of the skills or features of writing at each criterion score help provide more context to students' scores.
Supporting your use of the marking guide is a separate document containing a number of student response exemplars. These authentic responses to eWrite tasks can be used to better understand what writing looks like in different genres and at different levels.
Unscoreable responses
Occasionally, students’ writing is unable to be scored by the automated marking system. These errors are uncommon, and most often occur when the student is not properly engaged with the task, the response is below the minimum length to be scored, or when the student has not responded directly to the provided prompt.
Errors may be reduced by ensuring that the administration instructions are read aloud and understood by students prior to them starting the test.
There may be instances where a student has made a serious attempt at responding to a task, but their work is still not able to be automatically marked. The eWrite Marking Guide and Response Exemplars may assist you in manually scoring students' work against the eWrite rubric.
The criteria scores for unscoreable responses will appear blank within the online reports, with an explanation of the cause of the error displayed, for example 'No score (syntax)'.
Writing with the following features may not be scoreable:
- Off-topic: essay does not contain a minimum number of words from the topic-specific lexicon developed by the computer during creation of the scoring model.
Report error code: No score (relevance) - Too short: fewer than 50 words or 3 sentences.
Report error code: No score (length) - Insufficiently developed: 50 to 100 words with insufficient on-topic vocabulary.
Report error code: No score (length) - Major syntax errors: insufficient sentence punctuation, or too many run-on sentences, or syntax errors which prevent understanding.
Report error code: No score (syntax) - Repetitious: text or sentence structure is repeated.
Report error code: No score (repetition) - Too many unknown words: spelling is overwhelmingly poor, or essay is written in a foreign language.
Report error code: No score (vocabulary)