What validity evidence exists for the Analytical Writing section?
Interviews with graduate faculty, surveys of graduate faculty, and the work of the Writing Test Committee have consistently identified critical thinking and writing skills as important for success in graduate school. The two tasks that comprise the Analytical Writing measure (constructing an argument and evaluating an argument) are both considered essential in many fields of graduate study. Thus, the structure of the test can be shown to have content validity because the test assesses skills identified by the graduate community as essential for success in many fields of graduate work. Other types of validity evidence, such as construct validity, are documented in a variety of studies. In particular, large validity studies were conducted during the development of the Analytical Writing section (Validating a Writing Test for Gradute Admissions and Further Validation of a Writing Test for Graduate Admissions). These studies contain evidence of the psychometric quality of the Analytical Wr
Interviews with graduate faculty, surveys of graduate faculty, and the work of the Writing Test Committee have consistently identified critical thinking and writing skills as important for success in graduate school. The two tasks that comprise the Analytical Writing measure (constructing an argument and evaluating an argument) are both considered essential in many fields of graduate study. Thus, the structure of the test can be shown to have content validity because the test assesses skills identified by the graduate community as essential for success in many fields of graduate work. Other types of validity evidence, such as construct validity, are documented in a variety of studies. In particular, large validity studies were conducted during the development of the Analytical Writing section (Validating a Writing Test for Graduate Admissions and Further Validation of a Writing Test for Graduate Admissions). These studies contain evidence of the psychometric quality of the Analytical W
