Exploring the Effect of Using Automated Writing Evaluation in Taiwanese EFL Students'' Writing

• Main Authors: Ying-Jian Wang, 王穎健
• Other Authors: Hui-Fang Shang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/73263122200659920918

碩士 === 義守大學 === 應用英語學系碩士班 === 99 === Nowadays, following with the expansion of globalization, it is observed that the written text of English has been a major source of information of various kinds and gained much more important role in global communication. As a matter of fact, writing is not only used to evaluate students’ English proficiency, but also to assess their understanding of other subjects. Therefore, how to enhance and evaluate EFL learners’ writing ability has gained much attention. In recent decades, automated writing evaluation [AWE] has been frequently used in the writing class to evaluate students’ English writing performance. The purpose of the study is to examine the impact and effect of using the AWE in EFL students’ writing. In this study, subjects were 53 EFL freshmen composed of 19 males and 34 females from the Department of Applied English at one university in the south of Taiwan. The subjects from two writing classes with the equivalent English writing proficiency level were divided into the experimental group (employment of AWE) and the control group (traditional teacher-led writing instruction). Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to conduct a quasi-experimental research by employing a t-test technique and a semi-structured interview technique, and the nonequivalent groups pretest-posttest control and comparison group design was applied to explore the following research questions: (1) Is there a significant difference in the writing accuracy of the experimental group compared with the control group after the treatment of using AWE? (2) Is there a significant difference in the writing accuracy before and after the employment of AWE? (3) What is the overall self-report of using AWE on the improvement of student writing in terms of accuracy, self-learning, and interaction? (4) What are students’ attitudes toward the usage of AWE on their writing development? The research results reveal that there is a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in terms of writing accuracy after the treatment of using AWE. Besides, there is also a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores in the experimental group; in other words, the AWE has a significant effect on the improvement of students’ inaccurate usage of grammar, words, and spelling. Regarding the overall effect and the exploration of students’ perceptions toward the condition of their usage of the AWE software, it shows that students who used the AWE have obvious writing enhancement in terms of writing accuracy and self-learning awareness. However, as for the interaction between students and the AWE, it is found that AWE has its own limitations in providing the specific feedback, especially on the aspects of content and organization. It is expected that the research results can provide EFL writing teachers with pedagogical implications to fully understand students’ usage of the AWE in the writing process, in order to improve EFL learners’ writing performance.