Method A: Overall speaking, method A can achieve a high level of reliability. In terms of consistency, so long as the student has improved his/her grammatical accuracy can he/she avoid making errors that downgrade the marks. So, the result can be regarded as consistent. Speaking of stability, students of similar levels will likely attain similar grades if the marking is mainly based on grammatical accuracy. After all, students with high ability are generally more conscious of the probability of making errors, thereby spotting out any mistakes and correcting them accordingly in a timely fashion. Lastly, the assessment results are comparable in that grammatical accuracy is an objective yardstick less likely to cause disagreement among markers. 

Method B: In stark contrast, method B is not so reliable. The results are dependent upon the content, in part the depth thereof. Students of similar levels may vary in their ability or awareness in enriching the content. It may be the case that high achievers are only aware of grammatical mistakes, which is out of the scope of consideration for method B. The results may not be comparable because different markers may vary in their perception of concreteness. Some are lenient enough to allow at least 1 more sentence for explanation of a particular idea while some are too strict to allow that. Above all, impression marking is very  brief that different markers missing on certain keypoints will likely to give out different gradings. 

Q2:
Method A: The results of the assessment are less likely to generate appropriate inferences and consequences. For the former, a poor performance regarding the aspect of grammar and usage may not thoroughly reflect how much a student has acquired throughout the learning process. Writing is more than an accurate deployment of language resources. For the latter, students are discouraged to reflect on how they can improve their cognitive skills in organizing and expanding the ideas. Markers are burdened with the need to generate a mark/grade, and there is no room or them to leave detailed comments on how students can think from other perspectives in an attempt to modify the content. When it comes to the alignment of learning outcomes, method A is likely to achieve part of them. Aspects that are to be taken into account when grading a writing task are language, organization and content. Disappointingly, markers focus only on the first aspect. 

Method B: The same can be said of method B. Impression marking focuses heavily on the flow of ideas, perhaps with some attention paid to the richness of certain ideas. Again, content is only one of the three judging criteria for gauging the quality of a piece of writing. Worse still, markers adopting this marking style do not bother to remind students of their grammatical mistakes, which can prove fatal to language learners. Lacking enough knowledge on grammatical usage, one can hardly convey the meanings of their writing to the target audience. To conclude, method B fails to assess and raise the awareness of language learners’ grammatical accuracy. 

achieve a high level of reliability? Please state your reasons.

Method A 

Compared to method B, method A achieves a high level of reliability in terms of the accuracy of the marking. The teacher will evaluate students’ writing ability in accordance with their correct use of grammar and spelling rather than using a subjective marking strategies adopted in method B focusing simply on students’ overall performance in the organisation of their writing and the content which may lead to an inconsistency in judging the students’ writing abilities and causing unstable results when it comes to other teachers’ marking. 

Method B

Since method B focuses on the content as well as the organisation of the essay, the marking is subjective. In other words, unlike method A in which the use of grammar is either correct or incorrect, there is no guideline in method B which enables a high reliability among teachers since different teachers may have various opinions on whether the essay is organised or not.

Q2: In the two marking examples using Method A and Method B respectively, does the marking

achieve a high level of validity? Please state your reasons.

Method A

Marking method A achieves a high level of validity. To start with, this marking clearly indicates the grammatical errors which the students have made and provides clear guidance for students to do corrections. Therefore, students are less likely to make the same mistake again during their written tests next time and develop senses of awareness of grammatical usage. Besides, this marking is aligned to the intended learning outcomes of the written test. One of the intended learning outcomes of the written test (assessment) is to measure / evaluate students’ abilities whether or not they can compose a letter without many grammatical errors.

Besides, this marking uses scores to reflect students’ performance. This assessment marking method may lead to negative consequences. Students receiving low scores may feel discouraged and have low motivation to continue to learn English.

Method B

Due to the fact that not all factors in constructing an essay are being emphasised in method B, therefore in our opinion, the validity of method B is only being achieved to a certain extent. Although in method B, the ability of students in terms of elaborating a sentence can be assessed through the structure of the essay, the overall elements in constructing a well-written essay for example, coherence and the grammatical aspect is not included. Hence, only a medium level of validity can be achieved. In terms of the consequences, students may have learnt the importance of providing concrete and specific examples to illustrate their ideas more clearly after the teacher has commented on the his/her writing task.