Background: Artificial intelligence, particularly natural language processing (NLP), enables automating the formative assessment of written task solutions to provide adaptive feedback automatically. A laboratory study found that, compared with static feedback (an expert solution), adaptive feedback automated through artificial neural networks…

Effectively supporting students in mastering all facets of self-regulated learning is a central aim of teachers and educational researchers. Prior research could demonstrate that formative feedback is an effective way to support students during self-regulated learning. In this light, we propose the application of Large Language Models (LLMs) to…

Online assessment is one of the important factors in online learning today. An online summary assessment is an example of an open-ended question, offering the advantage of probing students' understanding of the learning materials. However, grading students' summary writings is challenging due to the time-consuming process of evaluating students'…

One of the core practices of science is constructing scientific explanations. However, numerous studies have shown that constructing scientific explanations poses significant challenges to students. Proper assessment of scientific explanations is costly and time-consuming, and teachers often do not have a clear definition of the educational goals…

In this study, we applied natural language processing (NLP) techniques, within an educational environment, to evaluate their usefulness for automated assessment of students' conceptual understanding from their short answer responses. Assessing understanding provides insight into and feedback on students' conceptual understanding, which is often…

To succeed in the information age, students need to learn to communicate their understanding of complex topics effectively. This is reflected in both educational standards and standardized tests. To improve their writing ability for highly structured domains like scientific explanations, students need feedback that accurately reflects the…

Sentiment Analysis (SA), a technique based on applying artificial intelligence to analyze textual data in natural language, can help to characterize interactions between students and teachers and improve learning through timely, personalized feedback, but its use in education is still scarce. This systematic literature review explores how SA has…

Recent developments in language models, such as ChatGPT, have sparked debate. These tools can help, for example, dyslexic people, to write formal emails from a prompt and can be used by students to generate assessed work. Proponents argue that language models enhance the student experience and academic achievement. Those concerned argue that…

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) provide hundreds of students with teaching materials, assessment tools, and collaborative instruments. The assessment activity, in particular, is demanding in terms of both time and effort; thus, the use of artificial intelligence can be useful to address and reduce the time and effort required. This paper…

Machines have a long-demonstrated ability to find statistical relationships between qualities of texts and surface-level linguistic indicators of writing. More recently, unlocked by artificial intelligence, the potential of using machines to identify content-related writing trait criteria has been uncovered. This development is significant,…

Writing a good essay typically involves students revising an initial paper draft after receiving feedback. We present eRevise, a web-based writing and revising environment that uses natural language processing features generated for rubric-based essay scoring to trigger formative feedback messages regarding students' use of evidence in…

The assessment of writing proficiency generally includes analyses of the specific linguistic and rhetorical features contained in the singular essays produced by students. However, researchers have recently proposed that an individual's ability to flexibly adapt the linguistic properties of their writing might more closely capture writing skill.…

This study investigates the relative efficacy of using linguistic micro-features, the aggregation of such features, and a combination of micro-features and aggregated features in developing automatic essay scoring (AES) models. Although the use of aggregated features is widespread in AES systems (e.g., e-rater; Intellimetric), very little…

A peer-review system that automatically evaluates and provides formative feedback on free-text feedback comments of students was iteratively designed and evaluated in college and high-school classrooms. Classroom assignments required students to write paper drafts and submit them to a peer-review system. When student peers later submitted feedback…

The assessment of argumentative writing generally includes analyses of the specific linguistic and rhetorical features contained in the individual essays produced by students. However, researchers have recently proposed that an individual's ability to flexibly adapt the linguistic properties of their writing may more accurately capture their…