Collaborative agency in rating scale development for L2 academic writing assessment

Calls for greater learner involvement in assessment have highlighted a need for rating scales that are not only technically sound but also pedagogically meaningful. However, in second language (L2) writing, students are largely absent from scale design, with most instruments being developed by teachers or test developers. Previous co-construction studies have often positioned students as the primary agents, with comparative underuse of teacher expertise and limited curricular alignment. This study addresses this gap by investigating how collaborative agency between teachers and students can inform the development of a rating scale for academic writing in a Saudi higher education context. Drawing on a multi-source framework, four meshed teacher–student focus groups and a follow-up focus group were conducted to negotiate the scale criteria, properties, and level descriptors. Qualitative content analysis revealed both convergence and divergence: while grammar, organization, and development were prioritized, students argued for a stronger recognition of ideas and discourse-level features, whereas teachers emphasized accuracy and feasibility. Through cycles of debate and compromise, the process yielded a five-level analytic rating scale with six criteria grounded in curricular objectives and stakeholder perspectives. This study shows how collaborative agency was enacted through a dialogic process of negotiating and integrating teacher and student perspectives in rating scale development. It extends participatory assessment research in L2 writing by illustrating a context-sensitive, theoretically informed, and curriculum-aligned approach to analytic rating scale co-construction for classroom use.