This paper proposes to use depth perception to represent raters' decision in holistic evaluation of ESL essays, as an alternative medium to conventional form of numerical scores. The researchers verified the new method's accuracy and inter/intra-rater reliability by inviting 24 ESL teachers to perform different representations when rating 60…

ChatGPT has garnered unprecedented popularity since its release in November 2022. This artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) is designed to generate human-like text based on patterns found in massive amounts of data scraped from the internet. ChatGPT is significantly different from previous versions of GPT by its quality of…

This article describes a student-led assessment of a writing showcase event sponsored by a composition learning community at an urban R1 university. Participants conducted student-to-student interviews at the semi-annual writing showcase event to help assess whether and how the learning community event supported learning outcomes. The interviews,…

We report on a college-level study of student reflection and instructor prompts using scoring and corpus analysis methods. We collected 340 student reflections and 24 faculty prompts. Reflections were scored using trait and holistic scoring and then reflections and faculty prompts were analyzed using Natural Language Processing to identify…

This study, informed by Vygotskian notion of mediation and reporting on a partnership between a researcher (the first author) and a teacher (the second author), aims at exploring how peers' comments can inform teacher assessment and guidance of learners' L2 (second/foreign language) writing. The participants were 19 L2 English learners in an upper…

Even though peer review enjoys sound theoretical support, classroom research has not always provided a clear picture of its effectiveness, particularly when it comes to form-focused editing. In addition to yielding conflicting findings with respect to the number of corrections students make based on peer feedback (Connor & Asenavage, 1994;…

There is a rich body of literature that details the effects of automated writing evaluation (AWE) on second language (L2) students. However, these studies mostly focus on the impact that automated feedback has on writing performance, i.e. that is, there is a dearth of research on its influence on affective factors. Hence, this study was conducted…

The first-year writing (FYW) course is located at a crucial moment in a student's educational pursuits: it is one of the few required courses that nearly all students must take, and success in this course is often an early indicator of whether a student is likely to graduate. This dissertation examines how writing assessment and FYW have been used…

The study explored six ESL university students' behavioral, cognitive, and affective engagement with e-rater feedback on local issues and examined any changes in students' engagement over two weeks. We explored behavioral engagement through the analysis of screencasts of students' e-rater usage and writing assignments. We measured cognitive and…

Affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagements play crucial roles in how learners interact with and process written feedback on their language production. The present study examines the efficacy of peer feedback versus ChatGPT-generated feedback in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing context. Participants (n = 169) were 1st-year…

English writing and critical thinking are not only fundamental to academic success but also play a crucial role for the holistic development of primary students. This study investigated the effects of a cloud-based gamified instruction integrating peer assessment on primary student English writing and critical thinking. A pre- and post-test with a…

Reflective writing is an important educational practice to train reflective thinking. Currently, researchers must manually analyze these writings, limiting practice and research because the analysis is time and resource consuming. This study evaluates whether machine learning can be used to automate this manual analysis. The study investigates…

Graduate students face writing anxiety and low self-efficacy regarding writing research papers. Holladay (1981) addressed the negative characteristics of anxiety in graduate students by writing: "They are frightened by a demand for writing competency, they fear evaluation of their writing because they think they will be rated negatively, they…

The process of responding to supervisory feedback requires student writers to position themselves toward both the provider and content of that feedback, indicating their stance in the interaction and their evolving disciplinary competence. How positionings are discursively shaped, developed, and enacted to influence thesis revisions, however, has…

Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in the use of automated writing evaluation (AWE) in second language writing classrooms. This increase is partially due to the belief that AWE can assist teachers by allowing them to devote more feedback to higher-level (HL) writing skills, such as content and organization, while the technology…