Previous studies on L2 phrase complexity predominantly focused on noun phrases, while the verb phrase complexity are few and mostly simple verb phrase structures, they have limited expressive capacity. Complex verb phrase structures (e.g., n-grams, VACs) also have limitations. The present study proposes a set of 41 Chinese complex verb phrase structures and are meaningful. A total of 246 verb phrase complexity measures are calculated from the dimensions of account, frequency, diversity, and density. The ability of these measures to predict writing quality is compared with that of 10 large-grained syntactic complexity measures. The results show that large-grained measures (Average sentence length) and verb phrase complexity measures (two verb-object structures and three adverbial-head structures) can respectively explain 14.4% and 41.9% of variance in writing scores. Our results illustrate the importance of Chinese complex verb phrase structures in assessing L2 writing quality.

As automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems proliferate, it is important to assess them for the extent to which they serve an authentic formative assessment purpose. We developed eRevise as an AWE system to engage upper elementary students in text-based writing, receive automated feedback, and revise their essay based on that feedback. In past work, we presented a validity argument for a response-to-text formative assessment. Here, we replicate evidence for the mediational processes we identified with a second response-to-text formative assessment. Beyond replication, we expand the validity argument in several ways: We examine multiple writing outcomes to understand whether the relationships in the data generalize. We also explore patterns of relationships to better understand which students are most likely to benefit from eRevise . Furthermore, we expand the investigation from feature score improvement alone to also consider students’ conceptual development over time. Our findings provide further evidence for sociocultural mechanisms supporting students’ conceptual development of evidence use in writing. We discuss the implications of our findings for future design of eRevise and AWE systems, in general. We also discuss the need for a recursive process where our findings also contribute to refined theory development and design of future AWE systems. (1). Formative Assessment; (2) Argumentative Writing; (3) Adaptive Expertise; (4) Conceptual Change; (5) Validity Argument.

Forms and surveys often require address information, including state. State data entry fields in online forms typically use a dropdown where the user selects one state from the list. A review of online forms shows a variety of state lists used, with some including the state name fully spelled out while others use the state abbreviation, and still others use a combination of the two, like MD-Maryland. Through a series of three independent experiments, we investigate usability of state list designs as measured by time-on-task, accuracy of answers, or user preference. Results indicate that participants have difficulty with state abbreviations alone. That design results in longer time-on-task, and lower accuracy and preference, particularly for states where the user does not live. We did not find any significant difference in usability for full state names compared to the abbreviation and state name combination in a dropdown design.