What Barriers do Students Perceive to Engagement with Automated Immediate Formative Feedback

Abstract

A small preliminary PhD research project used OpenEssayist, a web based automated writing evaluation (AWE) system designed to provide immediate formative feedback to students, to gain insights into how students use such systems. One of the themes which emerged from the data analysis was that most of the students on the module did not make use of OpenEssayist, which raised the question of why? Are there barriers to student use of immediate AWE feedback? The low uptake of use of OpenEssayist reflects the findings of (Attali, 2004), whose research on the Criterion AWE system found that 71% of students did not make use of the redrafting facilities of Criterion and were excluded from his data. All thirty (n = 30) students on the module subject of the preliminary research had the opportunity to use OpenEssayist, regardless of whether they participated in the research, only four students chose to do so. Two students who did not use OpenEssayist were interviewed. The first did not use OpenEssayist for technical reasons, the second did not have enough time to learn about the software. It is not known why the other students did not make use of OpenEssayist. This short paper reports on the preliminary findings of non-use of AWE and outlines how that has led to a research question for a PhD project, which is a work-in-progress. The question is: Are there barriers to student use of immediate AWE feedback?

State of the art and practice in AI in education

“…Despite their potential for supporting student learning, and probably because of the difficulties of automatically providing accurate and helpful feedback, there remain few commercial examples of AFA. One research example is Open Essayist (Foster, 2019). A key problem is that currently no AI system is capable of the depth of interpretation or accuracy of analysis that a teacher can give, instead typically relying on surface features of the writing or other output.…”

Bibliometrically and systematically analyzing automated writing evaluation for English learning

“…For teachers, their willingness to apply AWE is heavily influenced by the application's effectiveness, efficiency, and complexity (Du and Gao, 2022). Students' reasons for not using AWE feedback include technical reasons and the need for more time to learn using the software when they can access AWE feedback (Foster, 2019). Some AWE platforms possess the peer review feature, which could allow teachers to create peer review groups of 2-5 students, and students could write comments and suggestions to improve the essay quality.…”

Automated Writing Evaluation in EFL Contexts

“…Kerr (2020) stated that feedback quality, essential to EFL writing, involves active learner participation and adherence to writing class rules through varied feedback types (Wulandari, 2022). Foster (2019) used semi-structured interviews to study student perceptions, revealing that AWE feedback aided essay drafting and content structure, fostering better essays, improving self-confidence, speeding up writing, and reducing drafts. The study suggests that AWE can streamline assignment reviews and increase software familiarity.…”