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Abstract
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This study aims at comparing five rating behaviors of 8 raters; four novice raters and four experienced raters. The five specific behaviors including number and frequency of referring to the rating scale (Jacobs’ et al. EFL Composition
Profile), number of interpretation (justification), total rating time, total score, and number of pauses longer than 5
seconds are compared between the two groups. The 8 raters were asked to rate two essays written by two B.A. students
of English Literature attending their 4 semester at Persian Gulf university of Bushehr, Iran. Using TAPs the behaviors
conducted by the eight raters were transcribed, then analyzed. It was found that although a similar pattern was observed
in both groups’ total scores assigned to the two essays, there was found no consistent trend in both the experienced and
novice raters’ number of referring to the rating scale. In addition, we found that the novice raters’ number of referring to
the rating scale, and number of pauses were higher than those of the experienced ones, while the experienced raters’
number of interpretation (justification) and total rating time were higher than the novices’. The findings while
supporting the findings by the previous research, paves the way for future researchers in this regard.
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