Using cognitive diagnostic assessment for assessing writing in the sixth grade elementary school students

Among the language skills, writing is one of the most important communication skills that is planned for its education in all educational systems from the elementary school. The ever-increasing advances in educational assessment provide the context for the diagnostic information needed to determine the strengths and weaknesses of students. This study intends to explore the possibility of using cognitive diagnostic assessment to assess the writing attributes of elementary school students. For this purpose, the check list, which was proposed by Kim (2015) for evaluating academic writing in English and the initial Q-matrix, was reviewed. 816 sixth grade elementary school students, answered three writing assignments. Estimation of the model parameters were performed using Reduced Reparametrized Unified Model (R-RUM). The relative and absolute indices indicate that the model is sufficiently fit. The result showed that 17 indicator can be used to assess the writing attitudes with appropriate accuracy in assignments requiring students to write a long text. But for assignments that require writing a short text, the 9 indicator can be used to assess the writing attitudes with appropriate accuracy.