Abstract
Rating scales for writing assessment are critical in that they determine directly the quality and fairness of such performance tests. However, in many EFL contexts, rating scales are made, to certain extent, based on the intuition of teachers who strongly need a feasible and scientific route to guide their construction of rating scales. This study aims to design an operational model of rating scale construction with English summary writing as an example. Altogether 325 university English teachers, 4 experts in language assessment and 60 English majors in China participated in the study. 20 textual attributes were extracted, through text analysis, from China’s Standards of English Language Ability (CSE), theoretical construct of summary writing, comments on sample summary writing essays from 8 English teachers and their personal judgement. The textual attributes were then investigated through a large-scale questionnaire survey. Exploratory factor analysis and expert judgement were employed to determine rating scale dimensions. Regression analysis and expert judgement were conducted to determine the weighting distribution across all dimensions. Based on such endeavors, a tentative operational model of rating scale construction was established, which can also be applied and adapted to develop rating scales in other writing assessment. 
Highlights
Summary writing is a common practice in higher education where students usually need to grasp and digest the main ideas and the basic structure of a huge amount of information from books or teachers’ lectures (Friend, 2000)
This study aims to design an operational model of rating scale construction with English summary writing as an example
325 university English teachers, 4 experts in language assessment and 60 English majors in China participated in the study. 20 textual attributes were extracted, through text analysis, from China’s Standards of English Language Ability (CSE), theoretical construct of summary writing, comments on sample summary writing essays from 8 English teachers and their personal judgement
Summary
Summary writing is a common practice in higher education where students usually need to grasp and digest the main ideas and the basic structure of a huge amount of information from books or teachers’ lectures (Friend, 2000). Summary writing assessment tasks are considered of great authenticity (Li, 2016) and have been included in many language assessments worldwide, for instance TOEFL, China’s National Matriculation English Test (NMET), Test for English Majors in China (TEM) etc. Based on the document “Deepening the Reforms on the Educational Exams and the Enrollment Systems” issued by the State Council of China and supported by the Ministry of Education of China, the National Education Examinations Authority (NEEA) launched a research project to develop a proficiency scale of English, China’s Standards of English Language Ability (CSE). CSE consists of several subscales concerning skills of listening, reading, speaking, writing, translating, interpreting, etc., which could offer standards to be applied in summative and formative language assessment.
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