Affordances and limitations of the ACCUPLACER automated writing placement tool

Abstract

Abstract The College Board’s ACCUPLACER Automated Writing Placement Tool is administered more than 8.5 million times each year to place students into college-level or developmental writing courses. ACCUPLACER’s writing assessment consists of a multiple-choice Next-Generation Writing Test and an on-demand essay called WritePlacer. In this review, we offer an overview of ACCUPLACER, considering the test in light of the constructs of writing it emphasizes. We explore the tool’s objectives, its potential affordances, and its limitations and possible futures. We ask whether and how this tool might advance or impede efforts toward racial and gender equity, might promote or resist standard language ideologies, and might carry consequences for course placement.