Do English and ESL Faculties Rate Writing Samples Differently?

Abstract

This study investigates the degree to which differences exist in the writing scores of native speakers and international students at the end of their respective first-year composition courses (ESL 100 and ENG 100, in this case). Eight members each from the ESL and English faculties at the University of Hawaii at Manoa rated 112 randomly assigned compositions without knowing which type of students had written each. A holistic 6-point (0-5) rating scale initially devised by the English faculty was used by all raters. Raters were also asked to choose the best and worst features (from among cohesion, content, mechanics, organization, syntax, or vocabulary) of each composition as they rated it. The results indicated that there were no statistically significant mean differences between native-speaker and ESL compositions or between the ratings given by the English and ESL faculties. However, the features analysis showed that the ESL and English faculties may have arrived at their scores from somewhat different perspectives.