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…

Objective: To develop novel, scalable, and valid literacy profiles for identifying limited health literacy patients by harnessing natural language processing. Data Source: With respect to the linguistic content, we analyzed 283 216 secure messages sent by 6941 diabetes patients to physicians within an integrated system's electronic portal.…

Despite the promise of research conducted at the intersection of computer-assisted language learning (CALL), natural language processing, and second language acquisition, few studies have explored the potential benefits of using intelligent CALL systems to deepen our understanding of the process and products of second language (L2) learning. The…

Massive Open Online Courses and e-learning represent the future of the teaching-learning processes through the development of Information and Communication Technologies. They are the response to the new education needs of society. However, this future also presents many challenges such as the processing of online forums when a huge number of…

Based on my role as Editor in Chief of the journal Language Learning & Technology since 2000 and on my experiences as a technology-enhanced language learning (TELL) researcher, developer and teacher, I will provide an overview of recent cutting-edge research on the uses of technologies for second language teaching and learning. I suggest that…

Many important problems require consideration of multiple constraints, such as choosing a job based on salary, location, and responsibilities. We used the Remote Associates Test to study how people solve such multiply-constrained problems by asking participants to make guesses as they came to mind. We evaluated how people generated these guesses…

The field of spoken language processing is concerned with creating computer programs that can understand human speech and produce human-like speech. Regarding the problem of understanding human speech, there is currently growing interest in moving beyond speech recognition (the task of transcribing the words in an audio stream) and towards…

This article introduces the special issue from the 2015 Learning Analytics and Knowledge conference. We describe the current state of the field and identify some of the trends in recent research. As the field continues to expand, there seem to be at least three directions of vigorous growth: (1) the inclusion of multimodal data (gesture,…

This paper provides a novel, conceptually driven stance on the state of the contemporary analytic challenges faced in the treatment of dialogue as a form of data across on- and offline sites of learning. In prior research, preliminary steps have been taken to detect occurrences of such dialogue using automated analysis techniques. Such advances…

Second language (L2) learners often show inconsistent production of some aspects of L2 grammar. One view, primarily based on data from L2 article production, suggests that grammatical patterns licensed by learners' native language (L1) and those licensed by their L2 compete for selection, leading to variability in the production of L2 functional…

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…

Automated essay scoring (AES) generally computes essay scores as a function of macrofeatures derived from a set of microfeatures extracted from the text using natural language processing (NLP). In the "e-rater"® automated scoring engine, developed at "Educational Testing Service" (ETS) for the automated scoring of essays, each…

This study investigates "of"-constructions in the predicates of two reporting verbs, "demonstrate" and "show," in academic discourse. A construction perspective is taken to examine how the two predicate constructions (["demonstrate" N1 "of" N2] and ["show" N1 "of" N2]) would…

Previous text comprehension studies using the contradiction paradigm primarily tested assumptions of the activation mechanism involved in reading. However, the nature of the contradiction in such studies relied on validation of information in readers' general world knowledge. We directly tested this validation process by varying the strength of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an algorithm to generate story problems via controlled parameters in the domain of mathematics. The generation process is performed in the problem generation module in the context of an intelligent tutoring system suggested in this paper. Controlling the question parameters allows for adapting the…