A review of approaches to assessing writing at the end of primary education

March 2019 
Ofqual/19/6492 

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Document Outline

• Executive summary
• Introduction
• 1 Definitions of writing
• 2 History of National Curriculum writing assessments in England
  • Assessments in 1991-2012
  • Assessments in 2013-2015
  • Assessments in 2016-2018
• 3 Review of international approaches
  • 3.1 Method
  • 3.2 Findings
    • 3.2.1 Purposes and uses of assessments
    • 3.2.2 Mode and type of assessment
    • 3.2.3 Skill coverage
    • 3.2.4 Size of the assessments
    • 3.2.5 Marking and grading
• 4 Other innovations
  • 4.1 Comparative Judgement
  • 4.2 Automatic Essay Scoring (AES)
• 5 General discussion
  • 5.1 Assessment purpose and construct
  • 5.2 Implications for assessment design
    • 5.2.1 Mode of assessment
    • 5.2.2 Item types and prompts
    • 5.2.3 Marking/grading/judging
  • 5.3 Conclusions
• Appendix: Tables for the review of international approaches
  • Table 1. Overview of the identified assessments
  • Table 2. Uses and Stakes/Accountability
  • Table 3. The writing component: objectives, tasks, and marking/grading
• References