From: Response to written commentary in preparation for high-stakes second language writing assessment
Category | Value | No change | Minimal change/mixed effect | Substantive change/mixed effect | Minimal change/positive effect | Substantive change/positive effect | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
n | % | n | % | n | % | n | % | n | % | ||
Focusa | Task response | 57 | 30.3% | 37 | 19.7% | 24 | 12.8% | 29 | 15.4% | 41 | 21.8% |
 | Coherence and cohesion | 41 | 44.6% | 17 | 18.5% | 5 | 5.4% | 15 | 16.3% | 14 | 15.2% |
 | Lexical resource | 39 | 55.7% | 12 | 17.1% | 1 | 1.4% | 18 | 25.7% | 0 | 0.0% |
 | Grammatical range and accuracy | 8 | 16.7% | 22 | 45.8% | 3 | 6.3% | 12 | 25.0% | 3 | 6.3% |
Length | Short (1–5 words) | 16 | 76.2% | 1 | 4.8% | 0 | 0.0% | 4 | 19.0% | 0 | 0.0% |
 | Average (6–19) | 53 | 47.7% | 21 | 18.9% | 4 | 3.6% | 23 | 20.7% | 10 | 9.0% |
 | Long (20–49) | 64 | 33.2% | 47 | 24.4% | 18 | 9.3% | 37 | 19.2% | 27 | 14.0% |
 | Very long (50 +) | 12 | 16.4% | 19 | 26.0% | 11 | 15.1% | 10 | 13.7% | 21 | 28.8% |
Explicitness | Explicit | 28 | 20.0% | 36 | 25.7% | 13 | 9.3% | 31 | 22.1% | 32 | 22.9% |
 | Implicit | 24 | 16.6% | 47 | 32.4% | 20 | 13.8% | 32 | 22.1% | 22 | 15.2% |
 | Revisions not required | 93 | 82.3% | 5 | 4.4% | 0 | 0.0% | 11 | 9.7% | 4 | 3.5% |
Semantic functionb | Advisory | 34 | 20.9% | 45 | 27.6% | 17 | 10.4% | 41 | 25.2% | 26 | 16.0% |
 | Criticism | 18 | 14.2% | 39 | 30.7% | 15 | 11.8% | 22 | 17.3% | 33 | 26.0% |
 | Descriptive | 30 | 37.0% | 14 | 17.3% | 6 | 7.4% | 21 | 25.9% | 10 | 12.3% |
 | Praise | 76 | 74.5% | 6 | 5.9% | 5 | 4.9% | 11 | 10.8% | 4 | 3.9% |
 | Question posing | 10 | 23.8% | 7 | 16.7% | 7 | 16.7% | 7 | 16.7% | 11 | 26.2% |
 | Reflective | 5 | 71.4% | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0.0% | 1 | 14.3% | 1 | 14.3% |
Provision of mitigation strategy | Hedges | 29 | 25.2% | 32 | 27.8% | 11 | 9.6% | 20 | 17.4% | 23 | 20.0% |
 | Interrogative syntax | 11 | 27.5% | 7 | 17.5% | 9 | 22.5% | 8 | 20.0% | 5 | 12.5% |
 | Paired act/positive softener | 7 | 25.0% | 7 | 25.0% | 5 | 17.9% | 6 | 21.4% | 3 | 10.7% |
 | Personal attribution | 6 | 24.0% | 1 | 4.0% | 3 | 12.0% | 8 | 32.0% | 7 | 28.0% |
 | None | 102 | 44.0% | 48 | 20.7% | 15 | 6.5% | 38 | 16.4% | 29 | 12.5% |