Automated Scoring for the TOEFL Junior® Comprehensive Writing and Speaking Test

This report describes the initial automated scoring results that were obtained using the constructed responses from the Writing and Speaking sections of the pilot forms of the TOEFL Junior® Comprehensive test administered in late 2011. For all of the items except one (the edit item in the Writing section), existing automated scoring capabilities were used with only minor modifications to obtain a baseline benchmark for automated scoring performance on the TOEFL Junior task types; for the edit item in the Writing section, a new automated scoring capability based on string matching was developed. A generic scoring model from the e-rater® automated essay scoring engine was used to score the email, opinion, and listen-write items in the Writing section, and the form-level results based on the five responses in the Writing section from each test taker showed a human–machine correlation of r = .83 (compared to a human–human correlation of r = .90). For scoring the Speaking section, new automated speech recognition models were first trained, and then item-specific scoring models were built for the read-aloud picture narration, and listen-speak items using preexisting features from the SpeechRaterSM automated speech scoring engine (with the addition of a new content feature for the listen-speak items). The form-level results based on the five items in the Speaking section from each test taker showed a human–machine correlation of r = .81 (compared to a human–human correlation of r = .89).