Revisiting examination questions in tertiary academic writing

Abstract

This paper evaluates Horowitz's (1989) question categories in a different context from his North American study. Using a similar methodology, 311 questions from two different types of tertiary institutions in New Zealand are examined. Different occurrences of each of his question categories in the different types of institutions are considered. A comparison of our results with Horowitz's findings shows that differences between the New Zealand and American institutions appear to be related to “what writers are asked to write about”, whereas differences between the New Zealand institutions relate to “how writers are asked to write about it’. The results also suggest that assessment workshops within an institution may be useful for standardizing examination questions across disciplines.