UPWA

University-wide Program-level Writing Assessment

The University-wide Program-level Writing Assessment (UPWA) assesses student writing from Intermediate Writing Courses across the curriculum at University of Montana’s Mountain Campus, Missoula College, and Bitterroot College. Intermediate Writing courses are part of the General Education Writing Requirement. Intermediate Writing Course status is awarded by the ASCRC Writing Committee based upon a course application; the proposed course must meet the required Intermediate Writing Course Guidelines.

The UPWA was approved by the Faculty Senate in Fall 2013 and replaced the Upper-division Writing Proficiency Assessment on the UM-Missoula campus. The current assessment provides relevant information about student writing proficiency by assessing and scoring student-revised papers from Intermediate Writing courses using a Holistic Scoring Rubric that was developed locally by faculty members. All sampled papers have come from courses that have Intermediate Writing Course status and because Intermediate Writing Courses are a General Education Writing Requirement, the UPWA offers insight into academic work happening at the heart of students’ overall education at UM.

The annual UPWA cycle consists of three core overlapping elements that allow us to collect and observe timely data. Over the course of each academic year, there are two submission periods for student work (the end of fall and spring semester), a spring Writing Assessment workshop, and a fall Writing Symposium.

At the end of each fall and spring semester, all students in Intermediate Writing (IW) courses take part in the UPWA. The assessment process offers professional development opportunities for faculty and staff that are committed to improving student writing proficiency at UM.

How are papers selected for assessment?

Papers are submitted by students in Intermediate College Writing Courses. The papers are then selected randomly for assessment at the Spring UPWA Writing Assessment Workshop. All papers are de-identified prior to assessment at the Assessment Workshop (i.e. all information that can be used to identify the student and instructor is removed from the papers).

How are the papers assessed? Who assesses the papers?

The random sample of de-identified papers are assessed by volunteer faculty, staff, and graduate students at The University of Montana. The volunteer scorers are from multiple disciplines across the University. The papers are evaluated with a scoring rubric based on the learning outcomes of Intermediate College Writing Courses. The volunteer scorers read and evaluate the papers, then discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the papers.