Scoring Student Answers to Constructed-Response Questions and Essays

What Is Scored?

Millions of total student responses, including:

• constructed-response questions in civics, English language arts (ELA), mathematics, and science and technology/engineering (STE)
• ELA essays (grades 3–8 and 10)

How Is Scoring Done?

• Constructed-response questions in civics, mathematics, and STE are scored using a rubric, scoring notes, and student responses. These scoring materials indicate what knowledge and skills students must demonstrate to earn each score point.
• ELA constructed-response (short-response) questions for grades 3 and 4 are scored using a rubric, scoring notes, and student responses. Constructed-response questions are worth up to 3 score points. The three-point constructed-response question assesses reading comprehension by requiring students to construct an answer in a shorter format.
• ELA essays in grades 3–8 and 10 are scored using a rubric, scoring notes, and student responses. The essays are evaluated using two criteria:
  • Idea Development assesses writing and is based on a 4 score-point scale for grades 3–5 and a 5 score-point scale for grades 6–8 and 10.
  • Standard English Conventions assesses language and is based on a 3 score-point scale for grades 3–8 and 10.

DESE conducted informational webinars on MCAS constructed-response and essay questions, which includes information on how student work is scored. The webinars are available on the MCAS Resource Center training page, in the Constructed Response and Essay Training Webinars—2024 section.

Who Does the Scoring?

Human scorers are used for all constructed-response questions in civics, ELA, mathematics, and STE. A combination of human scorers and automated (computer) scoring is used for ELA essays. DESE announced the shift to using automated scoring in a Student Assessment Update.

Human Scorers

Professional scorers are hired by the contractor to score all essays and constructed-response questions. The contractor actively seeks a diverse scoring pool and typically employs scorers with a broad range of backgrounds, including teachers, business professionals, graduate school students, and retired educators.

All scorers will, at a minimum, have a 4-year college degree and a minimum number of college course credits related to the content area being scored.

All scorers are trained on each constructed-response question or essay they score. Scorer training sessions require that scorers

• answer each test question to be scored;
• review the content covered by the question and discuss its scoring rubric and benchmarked student responses;
• score a set of responses (training pack);
• discuss training pack responses and scores assigned to them; and
• score another set of responses (qualifying pack).

A scorer has two opportunities to accurately score a set of qualifying responses. A scorer who is unable to consistently and accurately score the responses will not be allowed to score that question.

All high school mathematics and science constructed-response questions are scored twice by two separate scorers.

Automated (Computer) Scoring

Automated computer scoring relies heavily on human scorers. Initially, trained human scorers assign scores to thousands of student essay responses. These human-scored essays are input into the automated scoring system, and the system is tested with additional human-scored essays. If the automated computer system is unable to score an essay, the essay is routed to a human scorer to provide a score. Throughout the scoring process, human scorers check a percentage of responses as a quality check.

DESE monitors all scoring—both human and automated—to ensure all quality metrics and requirements are met.

Scoring ELA Constructed Responses and Essays

DESE uses automated scoring alongside human scoring as follows:

• For ELA constructed responses (grades 3 and 4) and essays in grades 3–8, automated computer scoring provides a first score. Trained human scorers provide the read-behind score on 10% of all responses.
• For ELA essays in grade 10, all essays are scored twice. One score is provided by automated computer scoring, and one score is provided by a human scorer.

Last Updated: June 13, 2024