Page 144 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY 1ll

date their beliefs through each other. Therefore, online assess-
ment that is collaborative will have a deeper effect on students
because they will measure the worth of their writing based on
the types of response received.
• Writing depends on experiences, values, and technological access.
Those who were alive during earlier periods of technological
convergence in writing cannot tell today's writing specialists of
the massive changes in experience that occurred when letters
pushed aside speech or when the printing press revolutionized
hand-lettered texts. From reading rhetoricians, historians, and
scholars across the ages, one can only imagine or try to envi-
sion the transformations each moment in convergence had for
society then and how those instances altered people's experi-
ences, literacy levels, values, and access to technology.

We are, however, living in the most current wave of technological
convergence. With our own eyes, many writing specialists see
first-hand the triumphs and challenges that this critical moment in
convergence brings to literacy. As more writing tasks shift from pen
and paper to electronic type, students' experiences with composing
the written word evolve. Most compositionists can recall one stu-
dent (or possibly several students) or one class that had advanced
cases of technophobia on the first day of class in a computer lab.
Through trial and error, questioning, and a mix of confusion and
confidence, these students arrive at a point where hypertextual or
HTML composing, e-mail or ICQ ("I seek you") correspondence,
PowerPoint presentations, MOO writing, or producing other elec-
tronically based assignments becomes second nature. What we dis-
cover is that writing in networked environments, like other forms of
writing experiences, depends on students encountering the
opportunity to practice on a regular basis.
With these newer assumptions about writing and the writing
process in the culture of Composition, modifications must occur re-
garding the concepts of validity and reliability. Currently, as educa-
tional theorist William L. Smith noted, standard assessment
methods assume too much both of the rater's ability for consensus
on rating points and of the accuracy of the rating scales' intervals (in
Huot & Williamson, 1993). Smith proposed a turn to adequacy, par-
ticularly in placement situations, to evaluate student work. Assess-
ing for adequacy does not depend on extensive rater training or