Assessments of natural language can provide vast information about individuals' thoughts and cognitive process, but they often rely on time-intensive human scoring, deterring researchers from collecting these sources of data. Natural language processing (NLP) gives researchers the opportunity to implement automated textual analyses across a…

The present study examined the extent to which adaptive feedback and just-in-time writing strategy instruction improved the quality of high school students' persuasive essays in the context of the Writing Pal (W-Pal). W-Pal is a technology-based writing tool that integrates automated writing evaluation into an intelligent tutoring system. Students…

The present study examined the extent to which adaptive feedback and just-in-time writing strategy instruction improved the quality of high school students' persuasive essays in the context of the Writing Pal (W-Pal). W-Pal is a technology-based writing tool that integrates automated writing evaluation into an intelligent tutoring system. Students…

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) tools can facilitate teachers' analysis of and feedback on students' writing. However, increasing evidence indicates that writing instructors experience challenges in implementing AWE tools successfully. For this reason, our development of the Writing Analytics Tool (WAT) has employed a participatory approach…

The benefits of writing strategy feedback are well established. This study examined the extent to which adding spelling and grammar checkers support writing and revision in comparison to providing writing strategy feedback alone. High school students (n = 119) wrote and revised six persuasive essays in Writing Pal, an automated writing evaluation…

Language is of central importance to the field of education because it is a conduit for communicating and understanding information. Therefore, researchers in the field of learning analytics can benefit from methods developed to analyze language both accurately and efficiently. Natural language processing (NLP) techniques can provide such an…

The Writing Pal is an intelligent tutoring system designed to support writing proficiency and strategy acquisition for adolescent writers. A fundamental aspect of the instructional model is automated formative feedback that provides concrete information and strategies oriented toward student improvement. In this paper, the authors explore…

The Writing Pal is an intelligent tutoring system designed to support writing proficiency and strategy acquisition for adolescent writers. A fundamental aspect of the instructional model is automated formative feedback that provides concrete information and strategies oriented toward student improvement. In this paper, the authors explore…

This study evaluates the use of a hierarchical classification approach to automated assessment of essays. Automated essay scoring (AES) generally relies onmachine learning techniques that compute essay scores using a set of text variables. Unlike previous studies that rely on regression models, this study computes essay scores using a hierarchical…