CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Context of the Problem 1
1.2 Purpose of the Study 6
1.3 Research Questions 7
1.4 Significance and Rationale of the Study 8
1.5 Organization of the Writing 9
1.6 Definitions of Selected Terms 10
CHAPTER TWO REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 11
2.1 Direct Writing Assessment and Issues of Grading 11
2.1.1 Historical View 11
2.1.2 Contrastive Views 16
2.1.3 Nature of Direct Writing Assessment 17
2.1.4 Classroom Assessment:Concerns and Issues 20
2.1.5 Common Methods of Direct Writing Assessment 25
2.2 Test Quality Control 27
2.2.1 Test Quality：Perspectives 27
2.2.2 Test Usefulness and Test Interactiveness 30
2.2.3 Writing Research Literature 33
2.2.4 Revisiting Holistic and Analytic Scoring 36
CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY 43
3.1 Ethical Considerations 43
3.2 Research Design:An Overview 43
3.3 Variables 46
3.4 Subject Groups 47
3.4.1 Sampling 47
3.4.2 Power Analysis（priori） 48
3.5 Experienced Teachers'Judgment and Students'Self-assessments 50
3.6 Test Development and Instructional Design 51
3.6.1 Educational Context:College English Instruction and Assessment 52
3.6.2 Defining the Construct 53
3.7 Instruments 70
3.7.1 Grading Scales 70
3.7.2 Task Development and Prompt Selection 85
3.7.3 Affective Involvement 88
3.7.4 Strategic Competence in the Revision Process 96
3.8 Data Collection Procedures 102
3.8.1 Writing Performance 102
3.8.2 Scoring Writing 103
3.8.3 Responses to the Questionnaires 104
3.9 Data Analyses 106
CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS 107
4.1 Findings 107
4.1.1 Results for Secondary Research Question 1:Language Knowledge 107
4.1.2 Results for Secondary Research Question 2:Topical Knowledge 117
4.1.3 Results for Secondary Research Question 3:Affective Involvement 121
4.1.4 Results for Secondary Research Question 4:Strategic Competence 125
4.2 Validation of Instruments 129
4.2.1 Writing Assessments:Tasks and Scores 129
4.2.2 Questionnaires 139
CHAPTER FIVE DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 146
5.1 Summary and Discussions 146
5.1.1 Learning Gains in Products and Processes 146
5.1.2 Test Interactiveness of Holistic Scoring and Analytic Scoring 151
5.2 Implications 153
5.2.1 Implications for Assessment 154
5.2.2 Implications for Instruction:Strategy Instruction 159
5.3 Revisiting Assessment Criteria:Basic Functions 160
5.4 Limitations 163
5.5 Future Research 165
5.6 Concluding Remarks 166
APPENDICES 168
Appendix A Holistic rubric 168
Appendix B Analytic rubrics 171
Appendix C The Affective Involvement Questionnaire 172
Appendix D The Revision Questionnaire 174
Appendix E Writing performance record sheet 176
Appendix F Writing prompts 177
Appendix G The Writing Attitude Questionnaire:the Attitude scale 177
Appendix H The Writing Apprehension Test 177
Appendix I The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale 178
Appendix J The Haifa Questionnaire 179
Appendix K Summary statistics for rating results 180
REFERENCES 182