Is a Writing Sample Necessary for "Accurate Placement"? (2009)

In 2004, the Two-Year College English Association (TYCA) established a formal research committee, the TYCA Research Initiative Committee, which recently designed and completed the first national survey of teaching conditions at 2-year colleges (Sullivan, 2008). The primary goal of this survey was to gather data from 2-year college English teachers about four major areas of professional concern: assessment, the use of technology in the classroom, teaching conditions, and institutionally designated Writing Across the Curriculum and Writing in the Disciplines programs. This survey gathered responses from 338 colleges nationwide and from all 50 states.The single most important unresolved question related to assessment identified in the survey was this: Is a writing sample necessary for placement? (Sullivan, 2008, pp. 13-15). This is a question that concerns teachers of English across a wide range of educational sites, including 2-year colleges and 4-year public and private institutions. The question has also been central to the scholarship on assessment and placement for many years. The issue has important professional implications, especially in terms of how assessment should be conducted to promote student success.We have attempted to engage this question about writing samples using a robust data archive of institutional research from a large, 2-year college in the northeast. The question is a complex one, and it needs to be addressed with care and patience; this study has shown that the concept of accurate placement is complex.Review of ResearchThe scholarship about assessment for placement is extensive and notoriously ambiguous. Space limitations preclude a detailed examination of that history here, but even a cursory overview of this work shows that definitive answers about assessment practices are hard to come by. The process of designing effective assessment practices has been complicated greatly by the conflicting nature of this research. McLeod, Horn, and Haswell (2005) characterize the state of this research quite well: Assessment, as Ed White has long reminded us, is a polarizing issue in American education, involving complex arguments and a lack of clear-cut answers to important (p. 556).There is research that supports the use of holistically scored writing samples for placement (Matzen & Hoyt, 2004). There is other work that argues that writing samples are not necessary for accurate placement (Saunders, 2000). There is also research that criticizes the use of one-shot, high-stakes writing samples (Albertson & Marwitz, 2001). There is even work that questions whether it is possible to produce reliable or valid results from holistic writing samples (Belanoff, 1991; Elbow, 1996; Huot, 1990).Additionally, the use of standardized assessment tools without a writing sample is reported in the literature (Armstrong, 2000; College of the Canyons, 1994; Hodges, 1990; Smittle, 1995) as well as work arguing against such a practice (Behrman, 2000; Drechsel, 1999; Gabe, 1989; Hillocks, 2002; Sacks, 1999; Whitcomb, 2002). There has even been research supporting directed or informed self-placement (Blakesley, 2002; Elbow, 2003; Royer & Gilles, 1998; Royer & Gilles, 2003) and work that argues against such a practice (Matzen & Hoyt, 2004). Clearly, this is a question in need of clarity and resolution.MethodologyParticipants, Institutional Site, & BackgroundThe college serves a demographically diverse student population and enrolls over 15,000 students in credit and credit-free classes each year. For the Fall 2009 semester, the college enrolled 7,366 students in credit-bearing classes, a full-time equivalent of 4,605. The institution is located in a small city in the northeast, and it draws students from suburban as well as urban districts. The average student age is 25, 54% of students are female, and 48.5% of students attend full time (system average: 35%). …