Assessment Methods for Disciplinary Writing from the Perspective of Writing Education: Analysis of Performance Assessment Tasks and Rubrics

Objectives The aim of this study is to examine the patterns of disciplinary writing assessments and rubrics through an analysis of performance assessment tasks and rubrics, and to propose ways to improve them from the perspective of writing education. Methods To explore the patterns of subject-specific writing assessments, performance assessment tasks and rubrics from 28 high schools for the first semester of the 2024 academic year across three grade levels were sampled. After sampling, 581 performance assessment tasks and rubrics from the social studies domain, 397 from the science domain, and 256 from the Korean language domain were analyzed. Results Based on the analysis, reports, book reviews, and news articles were identified as the most frequently used forms of writing. Therefore, the characteristics of assessment methods for school-based writing were examined with a focus on these types. First, even within the same genre of writing, there were significant differences in how rubrics were implemented across different subjects, and these differences had a direct impact on the completed student writings. Second, there were cases where the distinctions between terms used in the performance assessment tasks were unclear and the rubrics failed to differentiate them effectively. Third, the setting of rubric stages and evaluation criteria often appeared to be somewhat arbitrary. Conclusions When planning performance assessments that incorporate writing across subjects, considerations should be given to aspects such as the purpose of the tasks, the development of example texts, the design of evaluation rubrics, and teacher training.