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1. Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30
An assessment of ESL writing placement
assessment
Deborah Crusan∗
Department of English Language and Literatures, Wright State University,
3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Dayton, OH 45435, USA
Abstract
What are the best assessment practices for ESL and international students who must
be placed into first-year composition courses at both two- and four-year institutions in the
United States? In this article, I examine this issue in three ways. First, I enumerate the
stances in the literature; following that I submit results of preliminary research which ques-
tions modes of writing assessment and their relationship to final grades in composition
classes. Finally, I present results of an internet search of one set of prominent American
institutions’ placement practices. From this data, it might be inferred that we use multi-
ple instruments to place ESL students into composition classes rather than resorting to a
multiple-choice test (especially a standardized instrument) as the sole means of determining
placement.
My primary purposes in this paper are to argue that second language composition special-
ists need to examine our placement practices and aim for a reconciliation of these practices
with our classroom pedagogies. Further, if we are not involved in placement decisions at
our various institutions, we must strive to be included in important decisions concerning
our students and to be advocates for second language writers.
© 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Assessment; Reconciliation; Second language
Writing assessment has always been problematic. The importance of respon-
sible assessment practices cannot be overstated, particularly when the assessment
measures influence critical decisions such as placement into composition classes,
∗ Tel.: +1-937-775-2846.
E-mail address: deborah.crusan@wright.edu (D. Crusan).
1075-2935/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
PII: S1075-2935(02)00028-4

2. 18 D. Crusan / Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30
an act laden with pedagogical, ethical, political, psychometric, and financial im-
plications. In fact, many researchers hold that “any project to assess individ-
ual students’ writing abilities, over time or in a single instance, is fraught with
philosophical, ethical, and methodological peril” (Bullock, 1991, p. 195). Further,
White (1985) asserts, “most testing of writing is poorly done, destructive to the
goals of teaching, and improperly used” (p. 2).
In the United States, most writing assessment 25 years ago used indirect mea-
sures of writing ability, specifically multiple-choice tests. This procedure was used
because direct writing measures in which students actually produce text were con-
sidered unreliable due to inconsistencies in scoring by independent raters (Gordon,
1987; Greenberg, 1992; Harrington, 1998). Potentially confounding factors for the
use of essays assessment included the lack of benchmark papers, lack of clear and
consistent outcomes criteria and lack of quantitative measurements for inter-rater
reliability.
However, in the past 25 years, the US practice of indirectly assessing writing
ability has been criticized from many academic quarters (Bullock, 1991; Conlan,
1986; Moss, 1994; Stiggins, 1982; White, 1986, 1990). Experts cite problems
with validity (Bachman & Palmer, 1996), ethics (CCCC Committee on Assess-
ment, 1995; Courts & McInerney, 1993; Spolsky, 1997; White, 1994a), efficiency
(Williamson, 1994), the inability to measure skills teachers consider important
(Hamp-Lyons, 2001), and myriad other concerns (Hamp-Lyons, 1996; Shor, 1997).
Some researchers (Hamp-Lyons, 1990; Huot, 1990a) have claimed that indirect
assessment of writing by means of a multiple-choice instrument is now a thing of
the past. Hamp-Lyons (1990) states: “20 years or so ago, many if not most people
in North America (to a lesser extent in Great Britain and Australia) believed that
writing could be validly tested by an indirect test of writing. As we enter the 1990s,
however, they have not only been defeated but also chased from the battlefield”
(p. 69). Unfortunately, even at the current time, the opposite may be closer to the
truth. White (1996) cautions: “Anyone with a role in writing assessment must keep
in mind the multiple-choice specter that hovers just offstage; no stake has ever been
driven through its heart to keep it in its coffin, however much it may be wounded”
(p. 109).
In this paper, I review recent literature defining placement testing. I also define
direct and indirect assessment of writing, and I cite inherent problems with both
direct and indirect methods. Further, I summarize published placement practices at
Big Ten universities, confirming the assertion that, despite the contentions of many
in the composition assessment community, indirect testing as the sole measure of
placement of ESL students into writing courses is alive and well at some of the
most prestigious universities in America. Finally, I summarize a study conducted
at The Pennsylvania State University which compares student performance on an
essay and a multiple-choice grammar test and correlates them with students’ final
grades. I argue that collectively, these studies offer evidence that, while we know
what we should do, we often do not do it. Our reasons are legion: cost, speed,
practicality and efficiency, validity, and reliability.

3. D. Crusan / Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30 19
1. What is a placement test?
Leki (1991) defines a placement exam as a test that pairs a student with an
appropriate course. At two- and four-year institutions in the United States, place-
ment tests are used to measure readiness for college-level course work and help
faculty decide whether incoming students should enroll in remedial or introductory
courses (Patkowski, 1991). They are not proficiency tests, but rather tools which
allow academic advisers to place students in the level of coursework best suited
to their preparation and skills. Institutions regularly employ scores obtained from
a variety of tests (ACT, SAT, Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL),
locally designed essay tests, locally designed measures of the sub-skills of writ-
ing) in order to make admission and placement decisions for students, including
students for whom English is a second language.
2. Direct and indirect testing
An essay test is a direct assessment of writing ability, an integrative test which
has an emphasis on communication, authenticity, and context. It attempts to test
knowledge of language as a whole, not the individual components of language.
Although the constraints of timed essays have been well-noted in the literature
(Crowley, 1995; Shor, 1997), the advantage of essays is that they are able to gauge
the ability of students to identify and analyze problems, to identify audience and
purpose, to argue, describe, and define, skills that are valued in composition classes
in the United States (Crusan & Cornett, 2002; Ferretti, 2001; White, 1994b). In-
direct assessments are also used to assess writing ability. “Discrete-point tests are
constructed on the assumption that language can be broken down into its com-
ponent parts and each of those parts adequately tested. Those components are
basically the four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), the various hi-
erarchical units of language (phonology/graphology, morphology, lexicon, syntax)
within each skill, and the sub-categories within those units” (Brown, 1994, p. 262).
An example of an indirect test would be a multiple-choice proficiency test divided
into grammar, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and “writing” which attempts
to isolate and evaluate knowledge of specific components of language.
Discussion in the literature abounds regarding the many problems surrounding
writing assessment — reliability and validity issues, rater training, holistic scoring,
and whether indirect or direct methods should be used for placement, proficiency,
and achievement; however, little quantitative evidence exists to support the po-
sitions taken in the literature (Hamp-Lyons, 1997). Polio (1998) points out that
relatively few studies address actual empirical research into ethical assessment for
placement of ESL composition students. Matsuda (1998) identifies an even more
serious problem, that “despite the growth of the ESL population, there has not been
a corresponding increase in the amount of attention given to ESL students in many
writing programs” (p. 99). Huot (1994) found a similar situation in mainstream

4. 20 D. Crusan / Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30
composition, commenting, “It is alarming to note the dearth of research and the-
ory in writing assessment and the lack of qualified personnel who direct writing
placement programs” (p. 61).
While there may be university administrators who believe in the value (mainly
in terms of efficiency and cost effectiveness) of indirect measures, over the past few
decades few writing specialists have publicly argued this, in print or at conferences
(Crusan, 2002a). Some writing assessment professionals operate on the assump-
tion that using at least a one-shot writing sample coupled with a multiple-choice
instrument is the most prevalent placement procedure used in US institutions.
Haswell (1998) has been unusual in recognizing the possibility of university use
of a multiple-choice test as the sole instrument for placement into writing courses.
Other than Haswell, it seems that neither native English speaker (L1) or non-native
English speaker (L2) composition specialists are concerned about finding quantita-
tive evidence to settle the question of whether a direct or indirect measure is better
at assessing writing in the context of college placement. The tacit assumption is
that the debate over the merits of direct versus indirect testing has been resolved
and the issue buried. Unfortunately, this issue has many lives, as demonstrated by
the proportion of institutions still using an indirect test as their primary mode of
assessment for placement into writing courses.
In a study of 100 private and public colleges and universities in the United States
selected for their “potentially significant second language populations” (Williams,
1995, p. 158), the researcher found that 32% of institutions reported the use of an
institutionally administered indirect test; 19% used a standardized test combined
with an essay; 23% an essay alone; and 26% relied on TOEFL scores for placement
in ESL composition course. If we combine the percentages of those reporting use
of an indirect measure alone, we find that 58% of the institutions in her study used
an indirect measure as the sole means to assess writing for placement.
More recently, Lewiecki-Wilson, Sommers, and Tassoni (2000) stated, “On the
grounds of expediency, many two-year institutions have turned to computerized
editing tests such as COMPASS for placing entering students into writing courses,
even though such tests do not directly measure writing” (p. 165). COMPASS is
a computerized assessment in which students find and correct errors in essays
on a computer screen, according to ACT (2002), the Writing Skills Placement
Test helps to determine placement into either entry-level or developmental writing
classes and assess students’ knowledge and skills in eight writing skills areas: us-
age//mechanics, rhetorical skills, punctuation, basic grammar and usage, sentence
structure, strategy, organization, and style.
Extending Yancey’s (1999) metaphor likening the history of writing assessment
to three waves — from objective tests to holistically scored essays to portfolio
assessment — Lewiecki-Wilson et al. suggest that there is, especially at two-year
institutions, evidence of a new “undertow — a backward-moving current” (p. 166)
returning to indirect, objective testing for placing students.
Writing assessment often seems to be carried out with little thought for who is
beingtestedandhowthesepersonsmightbeaffectedbytheresultsofthetests.Ifeel

5. D. Crusan / Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30 21
strongly that, as educators, we must be more knowledgeable about assessment and
aid administrators and colleagues to realize the pedagogical, social, and political
implications of the tests we administer to our students. Drawing on Haswell’s
(1998) contention that “most schools use indirect testing through a standardized
exam,” (p. 136), in the remainder of this paper, I explore the contradiction between
what composition specialists believe about assessment for placement and what is
actually done. As I will outline, indirect measures of writing ability continue to be
accepted as the sole means of writing placement at many academic institutions in
the United States.
3. Problems with the tests — or — who says which is best and why
Researchers (Bachman, 1990; Bailey, 1998; Conlan, 1986; White, 1985) have
documented problems inherent in using a multiple-choice test as an assessment
of writing ability. Some have found that students, when taking multiple-choice
tests, have a “penchant for guessing, especially those who are not well-prepared to
take the examination or those who are more impulsive than reflective in test-taking
behavior” (Henning, 1987, p. 32). The flaw, it seems, is using a grammar test as
the only means to measure writing ability. Grammar is one of the components of
language and is generally more appropriately tested through its actual use in one
or more of the four skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) rather than in
isolation (Bailey, 1998). A score on a single multiple-choice instrument may not
provide sufficient depth of information.
ESL writers might well be marginalized by indirect tests. Haswell (1998) as-
serts: “Indirect testing may be less valid for international students since they often
show a larger gap between the skill and habits needed to write extended essays
and the facility with the kind of surface features measured in test items” (p. 136).
Some ESL students, because they generally have memorized grammar rules very
well, tend to score very high on tests like the TOEFL. Consequently, it has been
claimed that multiple-choice tests overpredict minority students’ performance on
essay tests (Bailey, 1998; O’Malley & Valdez Pierce, 1996).
However, direct assessment of writing ability poses a different set of challenges.
While numerous writing experts value the perceived gain in authenticity that timed
writing tests represent in assessing writing competence, others find fault with its
reliability and validity as a measure of writing ability (McNenny, 2001). Many ESL
writers, unsure of the structures of the language, have great difficulty producing
fluentwrittendiscourse,especiallyintimedsituations.This,coupledwith“asimple
lack of motor fluency in writing English script” (Leki, 1991, p. 55), causes the
second language writer to write much more slowly than a native speaker, producing
fewer words over a longer period of time. Hence, timed writings might impose a
handicap on many ESL students.
For any student, another problem presented by timed writing tests is that they
are given under artificial conditions: students must compose on an assigned topic,

6. 22 D. Crusan / Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30
and they are most often not allowed to access any reference material such as
dictionaries. Many students find it difficult to write “cold” on a topic they might
never have seen before and perhaps care nothing about or, even worse, know
nothing about (Huot, 1990a; Leki, 1991). Further, in the timed essay test there
is no time for revision or any other process approaches (Wolcott & Legg,
1998).
The relative merits of both direct and indirect measures were carefully scruti-
nized by Breland (1977), whose study concluded that a multiple-choice test com-
bined with an essay can be the most educationally sound solution to administrative
problems in placement. In 1983, Breland (1983) presented evidence of the valid-
ity of direct assessment over and above other available measures; however, he
cites cost and reliability as two obstacles and recommends consideration of auto-
mated textual analysis as well as production and reporting of more than a single
score as ways to improve better direct assessment. Breland, Camp, Jones, Morris,
and Rock (1987) studied the differences between essay and multiple-choice instru-
ments for assessing writing and once more suggested the multiple-choice/essay
test combination in a effort to reduce the cost of assessment and increase its re-
liability and validity. Hudson (1982) drew similar conclusions and recommended
either a holistically- or analytically-scored essay combined with a carefully chosen
objective test.
In an effort to “discover how prevalent placement testing was and what forms
it took” (p. 49), Huot (1994) surveyed 1,080 institutions, both two- and four-year
US colleges and universities on the MLA list of English Chairpersons. He calls
this initial study “tentative and exploratory” (p. 59) and encourages more research
in this area. He found that only one-half of the institutions surveyed used any
kind of direct assessment for placement of students into composition classes.
In other words, almost 50% of institutions were still using some form of in-
direct assessment, a problem lamented by a number of composition theorists
(Huot, 1990b; Shor, 1997; Tedick, 1990; White, 1990). Further, 54% of the in-
stitutions that reported using some form of direct assessment “employed writing
criteria developed outside the university” (p. 60).
3.1. Placement in the ESL context
Because Huot’s data did not include ESL program data, I was led to gather
my own data as well as to conduct an internet search of US institutions of higher
education — both two- and four-year institutions. Preliminary findings are reported
in the following sections.
First, I compared a grammar test to an essay test to determine which was a
better predictor of final grade in an ESL composition course. Six composition
instructors and 124 ESL students took part in a study at The Pennsylvania State
University. The students were both basic and freshman level writers enrolled in
“sheltered” (ESL only) classes. They ranged in age from 18 to 40; 65% were male,
35% female, and they represented 26 different languages; however, Spanish (25%)

7. D. Crusan / Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30 23
and Chinese (21%) were most prevalent followed by Korean (12%). The students
were of varying levels of writing ability and were initially placed in classes by
means of a score on a university administered indirect assessment taken just prior
to enrollment as freshmen.
There were two independent variables in the study. The first was a direct
measure written on the first day of class on one of three assigned topics. The
second independent variable, an indirect measure based on disclosed copies of the
TOEFL, included 40 questions and was divided into four sub-skills — word or-
der, error identification, vocabulary/expression, and reading comprehension. The
reliability of this measure was .95. This test provided objective measure scores
in lieu of the university-administered placement test scores which, despite re-
peated requests, were not made available for this study. The dependent vari-
able, final grade, was reported to me by composition teachers at the end of the
semester.
The six instructors were trained, and used the Test of Written English (TWE)
scoring guide to score the essays, because it was initially designed to measure
writing proficiency rather than growth in the skill (Educational Testing Services,
1996). In case of a discrepancy of more than two points, we used a third rater’s
score to adjudicate. The inter-rater reliability was .92. Two English as a Second
Language instructors hand-scored the grammar tests.
Themostinterestingfindinginthedataisthecorrelationsbetweenthedependent
and independent variables. Both the direct and indirect assessments positively
and significantly correlated with final grade, although the placement essay had a
stronger correlation with final grade. The correlation between the grammar test
and final grade was the lowest but still significant (.190, P < .01). The correlation
between the placement essay and final grade was higher and more significant (.260,
P < .001).
It is important to note here that scholars have issued caveats when employing
final grades as variables. Armstrong (1995) argues that any model that uses final
grades as the basis for validity of a placement would likely fail to account for a
significant source of variation, that of instructor grading variability. Further, studies
of the presence of grade inflation (see Compton & Metheny, 2000; Edwards, 2000;
Nagle, 1998; Zirkel, 1999 for several perspectives on this matter) present reasons
for care and circumspection when utilizing such data.
Possibly of more significance both statistically and pragmatically, is the corre-
lation between the two independent variables, the grammar test and the placement
essay (.327, P < .0001), supporting the use of a combination of direct and indirect
measures as a means to place our ESL writers into composition courses. Despite
the fact that this correlation is derived from a relatively small sample, it supports
the use of multiple assessment instruments, rather than one or the other, in the
context of ESL student placement.
The second data set represents findings from institutional websites at some of
the largest universities in the US on the instruments used for initial placement of
ESL students.

8. 24 D. Crusan / Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30

9. D. Crusan / Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30 25
Table 1 clearly shows that at least three of the largest and most prestigious uni-
versities (Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin) currently use only a multiple-choice
instrument to place ESL students into composition courses.
In separate internet searches, I found that a great many two-year colleges —
which are often the educational entry point for many immigrant ESL students, par-
ticularly Hispanics (Rendon & Nora, 1994) — continue to use indirect instruments
as the sole means of placement into composition courses.
3.2. Placement and its importance for ESL students
Assessment for placement cannot be trivialized and weighs heavily on writing
program administrators (Silva, 1994). So important is placement that the CCCC
Committee on Second Language Writing in its Statement on Second-Language
Writing and Writers (2001) states: “Decisions regarding the placement of sec-
ond language writers into writing courses should be based on students’ writing
proficiency” and not “based solely on the scores from standardized tests of general
language proficiency or of spoken language proficiency. Instead, scores from the
direct assessment of students’ writing proficiency should be used, and multiple
writing samples should be consulted whenever possible” (pp. 670–671).
Armstrong (2001) recommends that institutions’ placement tests align with
course content. Likewise, Bachman and Palmer (1996) and Moss (1994) advise
that writing assessments should be linked with curricula. Students should be tested
in a manner similar to the work of the course: In other words, if the work of the
course is writing, then students should write as a means of placement. I believe that
a test is inappropriate unless it leads to the best available treatment or placement
for students (Crusan, 2002b).
It has been suggested that “assessment defines goals and expresses values more
clearly than do any number of mission statements” (White, Lutz, & Kamusikiri,
1996, p. 9). If a university’s definition of writing ability differs from that of
the composition community, its goals will differ as well. When a university de-
fines writing ability as product rather than a non-linear, recursive process, it is
justified in assessing writing ability indirectly. However, whether such assess-
ment is meaningful is a separate question. Continually, experts such as Ferris and
Hedgcock, 1998 point out that “an indirect measure might attempt to evaluate writ-
ing ability by testing verbal reasoning, error recognition, or grammatical accuracy,
all of which are related to writing performance in some way but only indirectly
because they do not involve the act of composing” (p. 229). The view that student
mastery of individual, bite-size, discrete-point rules can lead to full mastery of
the language is dangerous if it informs curriculum and leads to decontextualized
“writing” pedagogy (Leki, 1991).
Institutions may cling to indirect assessment techniques because they have a
narrow definition of writing ability. Institutions using only indirect assessment
tools for ESL placement may consider writing to be simply a set of sub-skills such
as vocabulary knowledge, error recognition, and mechanics. If this is the case, it

10. 26 D. Crusan / Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30
is not surprising that an indirect assessment is used. However, the assessment of
writing is complex (White, 1994a) and that complexity should not be reduced to
one score on one measure (Bailey, 1998; Belanoff, 1991; Carlson & Bridgeman,
1986; Haswell & Wyche-Smith, 1994; Huot, 1994, 1996). Many institutions cite
costandeaseofadministrationasjustificationforcontinuingtoassessESLstudents
solely with a discrete, indirect measure. Such defense of indirect assessment even
in the face of information which indicates that what is being done may not be
for the greater good of the students involved is suspect. Is ease of administration
and cost effectiveness for the university enough to justify probable financial and
academic hardships to students? Rose (1989) considers testing to be the supreme
irony. He states that “the very means we use to determine students’ needs — and
the various remedial procedures that derive from them — can wreak profound
harm on our children, usually, but by no means only, those who are already behind
the economic and political eight ball” (p. 127).
A number of researchers have argued that teachers should be involved in testing
(Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Hamp-Lyons, 1996; White, 1996). Kroll and Reid
(1994) contend that test developers should be those who teach the students who
will be tested, since these teachers would be better equipped to know what their
students can do, how they can do it, and what they need, and can, therefore,
better assess their students’ writing. Moreover, White (1996) strongly advocates
that composition faculty become involved in assessment outside the classroom;
he asserts that the measurement community regards the writing community as
“largely irrelevant to serious measurement” (p. 102). However, he also argues that
informed teachers can convince those in power to use and develop better types of
writing assessment procedures once they have begun to discover that assessment
knowledge is power.
Discussing the necessity for all teachers to address the needs of ESL stu-
dents, Zamel (1995) calls upon faculty to be border-crossers, “blurring the bor-
ders within what was once a fairly well-defined and stable academic community,”
(p. 519). In much the same way, I call for more compositionists to become involved
with the writing placement processes in their respective institutions, to cross the
border into the world of assessment and struggle to achieve “a vision of active
learning, creative thinking, and a much needed blend of skills with imagination”
(White, 1996, p. 111) thereby supporting the educational needs of our students.
How many of us could carry on an informed dialogue if asked about the writing
placement test procedures at our colleges and universities? Again, knowledge is
power.
“The form of assessment we choose is always important because as a rhetorical
act,assessmentspeakstostudents,faculty,thewiderinstitution,andthecommunity
about the values and practices of college writing” (Lewiecki-Wilson et al., 2000,
p. 183). This article’s purpose was to encourage ESL and composition specialists
to explore how we might better serve those we teach and test. In an age where we
seem to be cycling back into criticism (White, 2001), we must be cautious that our
students do not get lost — or worse, disappear from the academic scene altogether.

11. D. Crusan / Assessing Writing 8 (2002) 17–30 27
As teachers, we should re-evaluate our commitment to ESL students (Williams,
1995) by becoming more involved in the assessments that affect their lives, helping
our ESL students to carve out a legitimate space for themselves at the university,
a promise made to them by universities when touting much publicized diversity
programs.
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