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Journal of Writing Assessment

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After Implementation: Assessing Student Self-Placement in College Writing Programs

Creative Commons 'BY-NC-ND' version 4.0 license
Abstract

While a growing body of research provides instruction on how to implement student self-placement (SSP) for college writing courses, there is a gap in the literature about how to evaluate SSP after implementation. This article offers strategies and recommendations for assessing SSP processes, based on the authors’ experiences of developing a new SSP mechanism and evaluating its effectiveness over several years. This article presents statistical data from our analysis of our institution’s SSP, which informs a heuristic set o fquestions that others can use to evaluate the effectiveness of their own SSP after implementation. This analysis demonstrates the value of evaluating SSP processes for writing programs, as well as outlining issues that may emerge and should be considered when analyzing SSP.