The development and validation of a rating scale for ESL essay writing

This article describes an empirical procedure for developing and validatinga rating scale for assessing essays in English as a second language. Thestudy was motivated by a concern for the validity of the scoring grid currently used to assess ESL essay writing at Grade 12 in the final end-of-year examination in South Africa. Following an argument-based validation framework based on the work of Kane, we describe the development, trialling and...