17.3666, Diss: Applied Ling: Gebril: 'Independent and Integrated Academic Wr...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-3666. Mon Dec 11 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.3666, Diss: Applied Ling: Gebril: 'Independent and Integrated Academic Wr...'

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1)
Date: 10-Dec-2006
From: Atta Gebril < amgebr at wm.edu >
Subject: Independent and Integrated Academic Writing Tasks: A study in generalizability and test method 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:29:57
From: Atta Gebril < amgebr at wm.edu >
Subject: Independent and Integrated Academic Writing Tasks: A study in generalizability and test method 
 


Institution: University of Iowa 
Program: Foreign Language and ESL Education 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2006 

Author: Atta Gebril

Dissertation Title: Independent and Integrated Academic Writing Tasks: A study
in generalizability and test method 

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics


Dissertation Director(s):
Michael Everson

Dissertation Abstract:

This study investigates the generalizability of reading-to-write and
independent writing tasks. More specifically, the current study addresses
the effect of both tasks and raters on score variability, and investigates
the relative impact of these two factors. For this purpose, 115 Egyptian
university students were randomly selected and assigned to one group. These
participants were instructed to write on two independent writing tasks and
two reading-to-write tasks. After data collection, three raters who have L2
writing experience were selected to rate these writing samples. The study
followed a P? × I ? × R? design, which is a multivariate generalizability
analysis where persons and raters are crossed and tasks are considered as a
fixed facet. To analyse the data, the multivariate generalizability
analysis program mGENOVA (Brennan, 1999) was employed.

Results of the study showed that the reading-to-write tasks yielded as
reliable scores as those derived from the independent writing tasks. In
addition, the multivariate analysis suggested that a composite score of
both the independent and integrated tasks is as reliable as the univariate
scores of either the integrated or the independent writing tasks.
Furthermore, the analysis indicated that having different raters score each
task type would produce as reliable scores as having the same raters score
both task types. Additionally, the disattenuated correlation between the
reading-to-write and the independent writing tasks was a perfect one. A
final result indicated that score generalizability is very low when using
one task due to the large (pt) variance component. Implications and
limitations of the study as well as suggestions for further research are
provided. 




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