Attempting to assess student writing skills in academic settings is something of a dilemma: The more specific an assessment becomes, the more difficult it is to generalize about language ability in other contexts. So, how specific should we be in designing writing assessments for use in EAP courses?
In answering the question, it is important to ask what we would like to make inferences about in our academic purpose writing assessments. Occasionally, we are interested in making inferences purely about language ability, for example whether or not students can complete an essay with correct spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Such inferences are, however, unlikely to be particularly useful in academic contexts as we are more interested in inferring whether students can use their language ability (and background knowledge) to write academic assignments that are likely to be acceptable to students’ professors and teachers, than whether they can form grammatically acceptable strings of words. It is widely accepted that language performances vary with context and that specific purpose language is precise (in terms of its lexis, semantics and syntax). It would be almost impossible therefore to generalize from an assessment of pure language ability to the inferences we want to make about students’ ability to write and make meaning in academically acceptable ways in their discipline.
It is highly likely, therefore, that we would be interested in making inferences about specific purpose language ability to some degree. A defining feature of specific purpose writing assessment is that assessment performance is interpreted from the point of view of language users (Douglas, 2000). That is to say, the criteria that really count when we make inferences are the criteria used by academics in assessing student work (however implicit they may be!). In such circumstances, content is more likely to be the main area of interest to academics. When academics make judgements about student work, background knowledge and language ability are combined and language is not separated from content in assessments. Assessing in this way is a possible option for EAP specialists. Another possible option, perhaps most relevant for EAP practitioners, is to make inferences about language ability and specific purpose background knowledge separately. Both the second and the third option would give some evidence of communicative language ability (in varying degrees) with reference to the target situation.
So, which option is likely to be most useful for EAP specialists assessing academic writing in university contexts where students are acquiring the disciplinary ways of knowing through their EAP courses and writing assessments? The answer is likely to depend on where students are in their disciplinary contexts. Are they novices in their field or can specific purpose background knowledge be taken for granted as students get closer to graduation? What is clear is that the level of specificity required needs to be made clear to teachers and students from the outset so that students know what is expected of them and teachers can grade assessments consistently.
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