ETS researcher Paul Deane to speak in School of Education colloquium series

2:25 p.m., Oct. 29, 2015--The University of Delaware School of Education’s fall colloquium series, “Writing Research: Where We Are and Where We Are Heading,” continues at 1 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 4, with a presentation by Paul Deane, principal research scientist in research and development at the Educational Testing Service (ETS).

Deane’s presentation, “What Are We Measuring with Direct Writing Assessment? What Automated Writing Evaluation and Keystroke Logging Technologies Tell Us,” will share the results of an experimental study of writing assessment.

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In this study, ETS administered six innovative reading and writing assessments to more than 3,800 middle-school students across more than a dozen U.S. states. The direct writing tasks in these assessments required students to write essays in response to source materials that they had already read and analyzed. 

ETS then conducted extensive Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) analyses of student responses and collected keystroke logs that provided a record of the student writing process. 

The findings suggest that participants used a knowledge-telling strategy when writing. This finding raises an interesting question: If students do not spontaneously employ effective writing strategies that would help them prewrite, plan, revise and edit their texts, how can educators and researchers structure a writing assessment to learn whether they could have done so, or would have done so, under different conditions?

ETS administered this study as part of its Cognitively-based Assessments of and for Learning (CBAL) project. The CBAL project is designed to link assessment with strategies that can improve learning outcomes.

Deane’s presentation will begin at 1 p.m. in Room 207 of the Willard Hall Education Building, and will be followed by a discussion and question-and-answer period at 2. 

Students, faculty and community members with interests in English, composition, literacy, education, educational technology and policy are encouraged to attend. This event is free, and no advance registration or RSVP is required. 

For more information about the colloquium series and upcoming speakers, visit the School of Education colloquium series webpage. 

About the speaker:

Paul Deane is a principal research scientist in research and development at the Educational Testing Service. 

He earned a doctorate in linguistics at the University of Chicago in 1987, and is the author of Grammar in Mind and Brain (Mouton de Gruyter, 1994), a study of the interaction of cognitive structures in syntax and semantics. 

His current research interests include automated essay scoring, vocabulary assessment, and cognitive models of writing skill.