Writing essays and receiving feedback can be useful for fostering students' learning and motivation. When faced with large class sizes, it is desirable to identify students who might particularly benefit from feedback. In this article, we tested the potential of Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) for identifying poor essays. A total of 14 teaching…

The Internet is a significant information resource for students due to the ease of access it allows to a vast amount of information. As the quality of the information on the Internet varies, it is important that students are able to evaluate such information critically. The aim of the study was to investigate how students evaluate Internet sources…

This article reports the results of an investigation of the convergent criterion-related validity of two computer-based tools for scoring concept maps and essays as part of the ongoing formative evaluation of these tools. In pairs, participants researched a science topic online and created a concept map of the topic. Later, participants…

Latent semantic analysis (LSA) is an automated, statistical technique for comparing the semantic similarity of words or documents. In this article, I examine the application of LSA to automated essay scoring. I compare LSA methods to earlier statistical methods for assessing essay quality, and critically review contemporary essay-scoring systems…

This proof-of-concept investigation describes a computer-based approach for deriving the knowledge structure of individuals and of groups from their written essays, and considers the convergent criterion-related validity of the computer-based scores relative to human rater essay scores and multiple-choice test scores. After completing a…