Measuring English Writing at Secondary Level. A Binational Comparative Study

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Olaf Köller
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: from 2016 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 282656461

English essay writing is a key competence in a modern world in which English is the lingua franca of science, business and higher education. MEWS will be the first large-scale study of English essay writing in Germany or Switzerland at upper secondary level (10th grade) and has three main research questions: (1) How proficient are learners in essay writing in English two years before their baccalaureate? (2) What is the relationship between individual factors (e.g. motivation, intelligence), family background, extracurricular activities and English essay writing competences? (3) What is the relationship between school and classroom factors (e.g. classroom instruction, school types, baccalaureate rate) and English essay writing competences? Learners ability to write English essays will be measured in two populations, the first one from Switzerland (AG, BS, BL, SO, ZH, N = 1500), the second one from Germany (Schleswig-Holstein, N = 1500) at two time points, gathering a total of four responses from each learner (12.000 essays in total). We expect individual factors (level 1), classroom factors (level 2) and system factors (level 3) to be substantial predictors of writing skills at upper secondary level. Based on our literature review, we expect previous writing skills as well as English receptive skills to be the strongest level 1 predictors of subsequent writing skills, followed by cognitive abilities and motivational characteristics, i.e., academic self-concept and interest. Concerning the level 2 effects, we expect learners familiarity with the genre of the argument essay to be the strongest predictor, either because they studied such texts as models and/or actively practiced writing them. The project has a strong pedagogic focus and will investigate to what degree classroom factors such as peer-feedback, criteria-based assessment or lexical/grammar instruction predict writing skills. Concerning systemic factors (level 3), we expect to find the relationship lower baccalaureate rate = better student performances to be mirrored in our data. The project will use rigorously trained human raters as well as the ETS-owned and proprietary automated essay scoring engine e-rater® to measure key aspects of learners writing skills: The ability to compose grammatical, well-punctuated sentences, to choose appropriate genre-specific vocabulary, and to structure their compositions coherently by use of connectors and linking words. E-rater will help to overcome high costs associated with human scoring and avoid biased artefacts due to harshness and leniency effects. The project is done in a binational setting in order to exploit the complementary expertise of the researchers and to compare the educational systems of the two countries involved. It will lay the groundwork for an exciting new paradigm for teaching und assessing English writing that will be of great value for teachers, universities and educational governance throughout Europe.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Stefan Keller