Score Equivalence between Paper-based and Computer-based College Students' English Writing

Paper-based and computer-based writings are two usual modes used by English teachers in teaching writing. Computer and assessment familiarity, however, may have influence on students' performance in their writings, so the reliability of the scores given in the two modes is challenged. This paper studied college students' scores in 298 writings on the two modes and found no significant difference in the score equivalence from overall view between paper-based and computer-based English writing though there was slight difference in scores given to Lexical Resources and Coherence and Cohesion. The research findings may ease some teachers anxiety about the reliability of scores for computer-based writing.