Assessing the writing competence of pupils learning English as a foreign language (EFL) at primary school is challenging. This study aimed at examining a largely unexplored topic, namely the role of text characteristics in writing assessment, and analysed judgment accuracy differentiated by nine aspects of text quality (communicative effect, level of detail, coherence, cohesion, complexity of syntax and grammar, correctness of syntax and grammar, vocabulary, orthography and punctuation). Two hundred pre-service teachers assessed four randomly assigned texts from learners in grade six. Their assessment was compared to the existing ratings of two experts from a previous study. We found a relative judgment accuracy between r = .34 and .60 for the nine assessment criteria, with vocabulary being assessed significantly more accurately than almost all other criteria. Orthography, complexity and correctness of syntax and grammar and punctuation were rated with significantly more accuracy than cohesion, level of detail, communicative effect and coherence. The pre-service teachers assessed most criteria more strictly and with higher variability than the experts. The results suggest that teacher education should offer pre-service teachers concrete opportunities to practise writing assessment, implement activities to strengthen the assessment of content- and structure-related criteria, and help them adjust their assessment rigour. • Judgment accuracy in the assessment of primary school EFL learners’ texts. • Relative judgment accuracy between r = .34 and .60 for the different criteria. • Significant differences in relative judgment accuracy between assessment criteria. • Linguistic text qualities are assessed with more accuracy than content- and structure-related aspects. • Pre-service teachers are more rigorous and heterogeneous in rating than experts.

Numerous studies have examined the relationship between lexical features of students’ compositions and judgements of text quality. However, the degree to which teachers’ judgements are influenced by the quality of vocabulary in students’ essays with regard to their assessment of other textual characteristics is relatively unexplored. This experimental study investigates the influence of lexical features on teachers’ judgements of English as a second language (ESL) argumentative essays. Using analytic and holistic rating scales, English pre-service teachers (N = 37) in Switzerland assessed four essays of different proficiency levels in which the levels of lexical diversity and sophistication had been experimentally varied. Coh-Metrix software was used to manipulate the level of lexical diversity, as measured by MTLD and D, and the Tool for the Automatic Analysis of Lexical Sophistication (TAALES) software was used to obtain differing levels of lexical sophistication, as measured by word range. The results suggested that texts with greater lexical diversity and sophistication were assessed more positively concerning their overall quality as well as the analytic criteria ‘grammar’ and ‘frame of essay’. The implications of this study for classroom practice and teacher education are discussed.