抄録
This study aims to examine the effects of topic choice on written exams for Japanese second language (JSL) students. For this study, 56 JSL students each wrote two discursive compositions (one on a topic of their choice, and one on a given topic), which were used for the Examination for Japanese University Admission for International Students (EJU). The 112 compositions were scored by two raters who received 8-hour rating training. The results showed a 0.68 correlation and that the differences were not statistically significant between the choice topic compositions and the non-choice topic compositions. Although the score of the choice topic compositions should be higher than the score of non-choice topic compositions, only 30% of the students received higher scores with the choice topic compositions. Twenty-seven percent of the students received higher scores with the non-choice topic compositions. For comparison, students were classified into a high-score group and a low-score group. Topic choice appears to have the high-score group at an advantage over the low-score group. These results indicate that topic choice may have an effect on JSL writing scores.
