Rating

Pragmatic assessment and consistency in rating are among the subject matters which are still in need of more profound investigations. The importance of the issue is highlighted when remembering that inconsistency in ratings would surely damage the test fairness issue in assessment and lead to much diversity in ratings. Our principal concern in this study was observing the criteria that American and Iranian EFL/ESL teachers consider when rating Iranian EFL learners’ pragmatic productions regarding the speech act of compliment. The instrument utilized in this study was WDCTs and a speech act rating questionnaire administered to sixty American and sixty Iranian EFL/ESL teachers. In order to come up with the criteria, the reasoning and justifications of the raters when rating learners’ pragmatic productions were analyzed carefully through content analysis. The results showed that overall the raters considered nine general criteria when rating. They included: “Strategy use”, “Affective factors”, “Politeness”, “Interlocutors’ relationships”, “Linguistic accuracy”, “Sincerity”, “Authenticity”, “Fluency”, and “Cultural issues”. Also, the most frequent criterion among the native and non-native raters was “Strategy use” and “Politeness” respectively. Finally, it was concluded that due to some inconsistencies and variations in the ratings and criteria of both native and non-native raters, it seems that both groups are in need of pragmatic workshops and training sessions. The results of this study can have important implications for EFL/ESL teacher educators who are considerate of the importance of pragmatic training and instruction.

In this study, the researcher used the many-facet Rasch measurement model (MFRM) to detect two pervasive rater errors among peer-assessors rating EFL essays. The researcher also compared the ratings of peer-assessors to those of teacher assessors to gain a clearer understanding of the ratings of peer-assessors. To that end, the researcher used a fully crossed design in which all peer-assessors rated all the essays MA students enrolled in two Advanced Writing classes in two private universities in Iran wrote. The peer-assessors used a 6-point analytic rating scale to evaluate the essays on 15 assessment criteria. The results of Facets analyses showed that, as a group, peer-assessors did not show central tendency effect and halo effect; however, individual peer-assessors showed varying degrees of central tendency effect and halo effect. Further, the ratings of peer-assessors and those of teacher assessors were not statistically significantly different

It is necessary for decision-makers to have a rating system in the banking industry in order to reflect the banks' status and performance. Although most institutions across the countries have rating banks and financial institutions, there is a lack of a comprehensive rating system across Iranian banks. Rating requires identifying the appropriate criteria according to the environmental and macroeconomic conditions. For this purpose, 35 components are determined through the opinion of 34 banking and academic experts using the Delphi method and rating is done by the TOPSIS method for 15 banks listed on the Tehran stock exchange over the period of 5 years from 2015 to 2019. The results show that in addition to the quantitative aspects, the qualitative aspects and aspects related to environmental and macro aspects are effective in the native model of banks ratings. Also, there is a positive and significant relationship between banks stock prices variation and the suggested ratings. The obtained results showed that there is a positive and significant correlation between the comprehensive model and early warning system so that the bank's position can be relatively described in the early warning system by identifying it within the model. This evidence addresses the need for a comprehensive consideration of proposed indicators to evaluate and rate banks.