Validation Methods for Direct Writing Assessment

Approaches to validation of writing assessments have included comparisons of different direct scoring methods, comparisons of direct and indirect measures, applications of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and experimental studies. This review of validation methods was conceptualized within a framework suggested by Messick (1989), which included five operational components of construct validation-content representativeness, structural fidelity, nomological validity, criterion-related validity, and nomothetic span.