Ron McGhee / Brian R. Bryant / Stephen C. Larsen / Diane M. Rivera
Ages: 6.6 through 14.11 years
Administration: Individual/Group; 60 min.
The TOWE provides a comprehensive yet efficient norm-referenced assessment of writing achievement. It uses two methods to evaluate a student’s writing skills. The first involves administering a series of 76 items. These items assess a broad array of writing skills (i.e., ideation, vocabulary, grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling) to determine the students’ general writing proficiency.
In the second method of assessment, a story starter is provided to the student, who writes a completion to the tale. This evaluation method provides examiners with an original writing sample that is evaluated in a simple and user-friendly fashion. The essay is scored by evaluating performance across the writing skills. The TOWE provides an excellent source of writing samples that can be used independently in a norm-referenced assessment of writing or as a component of a student’s portfolio of written products.
The TOWE reports its scores in raw scores, standard scores (M = 100, SD = 15), and percentile ranks. The scale consists of a normative sample of 1,226 students residing in 21 states. The sample is representative of the nation as a whole across gender, race, and geographic region. Evidence of validity and reliability (internal consistency, test retest, interscorer) is provided in the test manual (averaged coefficients are in the .90s). Three types of validity are explored: content validity, criterion-related validity, and construct validity.
(TOWE ) Test of Written Expression
The TOWE Complete Kit includes:
• Examiner’s Manual
• Profile/Examiner Record Forms (25)
• Student Booklets (25)
