Search

This study examines the decision-making behaviors of raters with varying levels of experience while assessing EFL essays of distinct qualities. The data were collected from 28 raters with varying levels of rating experience and working at the English language departments of different universities in Turkey. Using a 10-point analytic rubric, each rater voice-recorded their thoughts through think-aloud protocols (TAPs) while scoring 16 essays of distinct text qualities and provided brief score explanations. Data collected from TAPs were analyzed by using a coding scheme adapted from Cumming, Kantor, and Powers (2002). The results revealed that text quality has a larger effect than rating experience on raters’ decision-making behaviors. In addition, raters prioritized aspects of style, grammar, and mechanics when rating low-quality essays, but emphasized rhetoric and their general impressions of the text for high-quality essays. Furthermore, low-experienced raters differed more in their behaviors while assessing scripts of distinct qualities than did the medium- and high-experienced groups. The findings suggest that raters’ scoring behaviors might evolve with practice, resulting in less variation in their decisions. As such, this research provides implications for developing strategy-based rater training programs, which might help to increase consistency across raters of different experience levels.

Çelik, Özgür (Balikesir Author), There is a general belief that software must be able to easily do things that humans find difficult. Since finding sources for plagiarism in a text is not an easy task, there is a wide-spread expectation that it must be simple for software to determine if a text is plagiarized or not. Software cannot determine plagiarism, but it can work as a support tool for identifying some text similarity that may constitute plagiarism. But how well do the various systems work? This paper reports on a collaborative test of 15 web-based text-matching systems that can be used when plagiarism is suspected. It was conducted by researchers from seven countries using test material in eight different languages, evaluating the effectiveness of the systems on single-source and multi-source documents. A usability examination was also performed. The sobering results show that although some systems can indeed help identify some plagiarized content, they clearly do not find all plagiarism and at times also identify non-plagiarized material as problematic., HTW Berlin

This study aims at investigating the effect of WhatsApp on teaching English idioms to EFL students. The data were collected from 33 B1 level students. The researchers provided the students with three idioms per week for five weeks via WhatsApp. The participants found sample sentences, shared them in their WhatsApp groups, and had discussions in English regarding the use and meaning of the idioms. Students were given an achievement test and a sub-sample group of students were interviewed to see the effectiveness of this application. The results revealed how students benefited from WhatsApp as a learning tool and their reactions to mobile learning outside the classroom context. The findings highlight the place of mobile learning in foreign language education. Bu çalışmada, WhatsApp mobil uygulamasının öğrencilere İngilizce deyimlerin öğretimi üzerindeki etkisini araştırmak hedeflenmiştir. Araştırmanın verisi, orta (B1) düzeyde İngilizce yeterliliğe sahip 33 öğrenciden toplanmıştır. Haftada 3 kez olmak üzere 5 hafta boyunca araştırmacılar, WhatsApp grupları üzerinden öğrencilere İngilizce deyim göndermişlerdir. Öğrenciler, deyimlerle ilgili örnek cümleler bulmuş, buldukları cümleleri WhatsApp gruplarında paylaşmış ve deyimlerin anlamları ve kullanımları ile ilgili İngilizce tartışmalar yürütmüşlerdir. Bu uygulamanın etkinliğini ölçmek adına, öğrencilere başarı testi uygulanmış ve altörneklem öğrencilerle mülakat yapılmıştır. Bu araştırmanın sonuçları, öğrencilerin öğrenme aracı olarak WhasApp uygulamasından ne ölçüde yararlandıklarını ve sınıf dışında mobil öğrenmeye olan tutumlarını ortaya koymuştur. Araştırmanın bulguları, mobil teknolojinin yabancı dil öğretimindeki yerini ön plana çıkarmaktadır.