A Rubric Study for Assessing Paragraph Level Written Texts

Abstract

In this study, an analytical rubric which has a five dimensional scoring key was developed. It was used to evaluate paragraph-level written texts which were written by the students attending process writing activities in B1 optional preparatory classes in Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University School of Foreign Languages. The development stages of rubric are as follows: establishing the dimensions of the rubric, establishing the performance levels, cells (the criteria of the rubric) and the performance level score ranges of the rubric, examining the usability of the rubric by forming sample texts, the trial of the rubric, the validity and the reliability of the rubric. In the development stages of the rubric; for the pilot study, 60 university students in the optional B1 English preparatory program at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman School of Foreign Languages and an English language lecturer were included. Also, the opinions of three English language lecturers’ and two experts’ who are in the field of education sciences and one instructor’s who is in the field of Turkish language and literature were taken, to estimate the inter-rater reliability two English language lecturers were included. When Kappa coefficients of the dimensions of the rubric were examined, it can be said that there was a moderate and strong agreement among the raters in terms of assessing all dimensions in the rubric.