About
The Journal of Writing Assessment provides a peer-reviewed forum for the publication of manuscripts from a variety of disciplines and perspectives that address topics in writing assessment. Submissions may investigate such assessment-related topics as grading and response, program assessment, historical perspectives on assessment, assessment theory, and educational measurement as well as other relevant topics. Articles are welcome from a variety of areas including K-12, college classes, large-scale assessment, and noneducational settings. We also welcome book reviews of recent publications related to writing assessment and annotated bibliographies of current issues in writing assessment.
Please refer to the submission guidelines on this page for information for authors and submission guidelines.
Volume 18, Issue 2, 2025
Articles
- Editors’ Introduction: New Editors, New Directions in Writing Assessment
The JWA 18.2 editors’ introduction contains a welcome by the new journal editors, Mathew Gomes, Lizbett Tinoco, and Stacy Wittstock. It also provides an overview of the two articles and symposium in the issue: Bradley Queen, Kate Kirby, Maryam Eslami, and Kameryn Denaro’s (2025) exploration of ePortfolios as instruments of fairness; Daniel Ernst’s (2025) examination of the use of automated writing evaluation (AWE) technology in writing assessment; and Megan Von Bergen’s (2025) critique of labor-based grading discussions by Kryger and Zimmerman (2020) and Carillo (2021), followed by responses from Griffin X. Zimmerman (2025) and Ellen Carillo (2025).
- Exploring Fairness and Seeking Social Justice for Writing Assessment: ePortfolios, Language Difference, and Metacognition
This quantitative validation analysis applies antiracist methods to longitudinal ePortfolio assessment data to study language difference through the lens of a metacognitive literacy construct. With interdisciplinary research reshaping the field of writing assessment using quantitative and intersectional demographic approaches, this essay advances language as a meaningful register of validity evidence and an indicator of fairness across linguistically and racially heterogeneous students sorted into three cohorts that establish comparisons of ePortfolio assessment scores from samples tracking from 2016–2020. To contribute to the critical study of social justice in writing assessment, this exploratory analysis offers nuanced responses to its guiding heuristic question: Can ePortfolios be instruments of fairness in a local assessment ecology? For this formative curricular assessment, rigorous statistical methods complicate claims derived from the ePortfolio assessment results, with post-hoc power calculations and disparate impact analysis used to search for differences between language cohorts and intersectional demographics defined by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and first generation. These quantitative methods further inferences about the ePortfolio instrument’s fairness by problematizing the use of singular demographic aggregations for underrepresented students when attempting to validate assessment constructs and engage in the ongoing study of fairness and social justice in a local writing assessment ecology.
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- The Effects of Automated Writing Evaluation Technology on Improving Student Writing
Advances in automated writing evaluation technology have shifted the aims of the tools from reliably and holistically scoring and ranking essays to providing formative and analytical feedback to users for improving writing. This study uses a quasi-experimental design to test the ability of one automated writing evaluation program to improve college student writing. Using a comparative judgment model of assessment, four college writing instructors evaluated pairs of essays with one per pair treated by the program and selected the better of each pair. The essays treated by the automated evaluation program significantly underperformed the null hypothesis of 50%. Results suggest the automated evaluation program fails to improve student writing in the eyes of instructors. Theories and implications for why are discussed.
- On Neurodivergence/Disability and Labor-Based Grading: A Response to Kryger and Zimmerman (2020) and Carillo (2021)
This essay responds to existing scholarship on neurodivergence/disability and labor-based grading, contending that current critiques define labor-based grading too narrowly and conflate the lack of quantitative grades with a lack of scaffolding. The essay further suggests that labor-based or other alternative assessment approaches, especially those which move away from authoritative, quality-based judgments of student work, invite students to express agency over and open a conversation about expectations around writing processes and habits. The article concludes by calling for additional research and conversation about how labor-based approaches may account for access and accessibility.
- 1 supplemental PDF