Web-based essay critiquing system and EFL students’ writing - a quantitative and qualitative investigation - Cynthia Lee et al

8/12/2019 Web-based essay critiquing system and EFL students writing - a quantitative and qualitative investigation - Cynthia Lee et al.

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essays in educational computing research. In this initiative, we make use of LSA to giveimmediate feedback to help EFL students reect on content and their organisation of ideas, and revise drafts independently using the internet. In this paper, we rst describe therationale and the system, then present and discuss the ndings of an experimental study onadult EFL students writing.

Essay writing in a computer context

The invention of the computer has brought important changes to all walks of life, one of which is education. In second language teaching, computers have revolutionised themanner of teaching, especially the teaching of writing. The paradigm shift from exploringthe role of word-processors in writing in the late 1980s, to researching the best ways tosupport or assess student writing through computers (Foltz, Gilliam, & Kendall, 2000;

Chapelle, 2001) has evidenced the burgeoning role of computers in language teaching. Thefunctions of computers have been moved from a writing tool in the traditional classroom,to developing computer assisted language learning (CALL) activities in languagelaboratories, using synchronous and asynchronous networked tools such as local areanetworks (LAN), wide area networks (WAN), emails, the world-wide web and ICQ(Pennington, 2004), and developing educational software based on such techniques asLSA (e.g. Kintsch et al., 2000; Foltz et al., 2000) to mark language learners disciplineessays beyond classroom boundaries. Technological changes, therefore, have generatednew literacies, genres, identities and pedagogies (Warschauer, 2004). Writing in acomputer context is thought to be more benecial to students than writing in a pen-and-paper context due to its automation, exibility and cognitive demands (Pennington, 2003,p. 289). EFL teachers, in particular, are called upon to be aware of the capabilities of technology in teaching, and to examine different options and their applications (Franklin,1999, cited in Chapelle & Hegelheimer, 2004). However, such optimism needs caution,because research on writing produced in a computer context so far has mixed results inwriting quality, and such factors as individual students writing ability, pedagogy and theselected software are inuential.

Recent research on EFL writing in a computer context focuses on two main areas. Therst area examines the extent to which networked environments can promote writingquality. Ghaleb (1993, cited in Braine, 2004) and Braine (1997, 2001, 2004), who comparedthe quality of writing produced in the LAN context with that produced in traditionalwriting classes, found that nal submissions in traditional writing classes were of higherquality than those in the LAN context. In contrast, Sullivan and Pratts study (1996)produced the opposite results. Their subjects discourse and feedback in a computer-assisted classroom were more thought-provoking than those in an oral discussion

classroom, and the tool generated better writing quality. The second area uses educationalsoftware to evaluate writing with a view to enhancing writing quality. In Kozna andJohnstons study (1991), the quality of writing was not improved when two computer-based tools outliners and organisers were in use; rather it depended on the studentsinitial writing ability. Novice student writers had more difficulties revising compositionswith the tools than advanced student writers did. Likewise, in Chen and Chengs study(2006), students were not satised with the grade and supercial and inaccurate feedbackon both the content and the rhetorical aspects of their writings given by the automatedessay grading program MyAccess , although the program has been reported as being usefulon some occasions. Nevertheless, the educational software or system that uses the LSAtechnique has generated satisfactory results in terms of accuracy regarding the content,

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outline and coherence of the essay. Studies of Kintsch et al. (2000), Lemaire and Dessus(2001) and Foltz et al. (2000) found that their educational software systems, such asSummary Sheet and Apex , which evaluated a students essay content in comparison withthe important source content of a subject stored in the system, had a signicant correlationbetween human grades and the automated essay grader.

Given the encouraging results on using the LSA technique to provide immediatefeedback on content and coherence, and considering the trend of teaching writing in anetworked environment but with mixed results, we developed an essay critiquing system(ECS) that uses the technique to help students write essays that are required inour teaching context. The following section describes our teaching context and thesystem design, followed by a report on our experimental study and pedagogicalimplications.

An essay critiquing system (ECS)

Background information

Teaching context

The essay writing skill is an essential academic communication skill at university, and istested in international and local examinations such as the Test of English as ForeignLanguage (TOEFL), 1 International English Language Testing System (IELTS), 2 Use of English in Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE) 3 and English courses atour university 4 for EFL learners with a designated time and length, ranging from 250 to500 words in 30 to 80 minutes respectively. Over 90% of our rst year university students,who are EFL learners who have been studying English for over 13 years and have passedlocal or international examinations, are also required to take two compulsory Englishcourses in which essay writing skills are taught, practised and tested in each course. Theylearn the writing skills in lectures and are asked to write their essays at home. They candiscuss the essays with teachers (but very few do it), and write and revise their essaysoutside classrooms prior to the submission deadline. The argumentative genre, however, isdemanding for our students, because it requires not only their understanding of itsstructure, but also the ability to plan, express, develop an argument and revise intendedmeaning, as well as the mastery of rhetorical devices (e.g. organisation, cohesion andcoherence). They need practice and appropriate feedback or comments from teachers isdeemed necessary. Since it is difficult for teachers always to provide detailed comments, wedeveloped a web-based essay critiquing system, using latent semantic analysis (LSA), anautomatic text analysis technique, to provide students with immediate feedback on ideasfor revision and use with no teacher presence and whenever there is an internet connection

(Cheung et al., 2007; Wong et al., 2007).

ECS design

ECS is a system that has incorporated LSA to provide immediate feedback on writingideas to students on an essay topic by comparing student and model essays. LSA is amathematical technique for computing the semantic similarity between pieces of textualinformation (for example, sentences, paragraphs or essays) with the help of a large corpus(Landauer & Laham, 1998; Landauer & Psotka, 2000) on a domain of students essays. Ithas been used for writing summaries (Kintsch et al., 2000) and grading essays (Foltz et al.,2000; Lemaire & Dessus, 2001).

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The system consists of eight components: teacher input; student input; a database thatstores student answers and reference materials from external sources; a text segmentationand a pre-processing engine; an LSA engine; and a semantic matcher for providing criticalfeedback to students (Figure 1).

The system allows a teacher to decide on an essay topic for students, and to make useof some relevant background materials on the topic, such as articles collected frominternet resources, students sample essays or textbooks to build a corpus. These materialsare rst broken down into sentences and pre-processed by removing stop-words (i.e.removing prepositions, articles etc.) and stemming (i.e. converting verbs and plural nounsinto their basic forms) by the text segmentation and pre-processing engine. Next, the LSAengine computes the word-segment association matrix. The matrix is then decomposedusing the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) technique (Strang, 1980) to form asemantic space in which words that frequently occur in the same segments are positioned

near one another (Steinhart, 2001). For example, words that do not co-occur (bicycle andbike) in a context, but occur in similar contexts will also be grouped together in thesemantic space. In the semantic space, each sub-theme will be represented as a featurevector. After constructing the semantic space, semantic similarity between two textsegments can then be computed by calculating the geometric cosine value between thecorresponding feature vector in the semantic space. The range of the cosine value is fromzero to one, indicating the degree of similarity.

System features and corresponding functions

The system provides two modes of feedback. The rst mode is on content (i.e. covered andmissing, see Figures 2 and 3) sub-themes, and the second one is on organisation (i.e.distribution of sub-themes on the text and degree of relevance, see Figure 3). When astudent submits his or her essay to the critiquing system for feedback, the semantic

Figure 1. Essay critiquing system architecture.

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similarity between all possible pairs one from the students essay and the other from thesystems sub-theme list is calculated. When the process is completed, the sub-themes onthe list that are missing in the students essay will be identied. The missing sub-themeswill be reported to the student for his or her consideration when revising their essay. Thesystem is also able to identify text segments in the students essay that match with the sub-themes in the sub-theme list, and highlight them in different colours according to thedegree of matching.

More importantly, the system is a web-based system that is available for use at thelearners convenience whenever there is an internet connection. The characteristic features

Figure 2. Student interface: display of missing sub-themes.

Figure 3. A revised version.



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and functions are illustratedin Figures 2 and 3. The two gures also illustrate how the systemprovides feedback, and howa student revised hisessay after receiving feedback (in Figure 3).

The student interface (Figure 2) is divided into left and right columns. The rightcolumn displays the uploaded student essay, while the left column provides missing sub-themes, sub-themes that have been covered in the text and the degree of relevance of thetext to the matched sub-themes indicated using three colours (Figure 3). After uploadingthe rst submission, the student will see his or her essay and the suggested sub-themes.When they click a covered sub-theme, they will visualise the part of the text that is relevantto the highlighted sub-theme, ranging from highly related ( bold ) to related ( italic ) toslightly related (underline), and the distribution of the sub-theme in the text (Figure 3).The two modes of feedback aim to stimulate the student to think about the developmentand organisation of arguments in the text, which involves rhetorical features such ascohesion and coherence.

The impact of the two modes of feedback can be seen in Figure 3. As shown from thescreenshot, thestudent integrated thesecondsub-theme healthproblems/diseases into therst paragraph, and developed it by elaborating on the harm of fast food and undesirablefrying effects. The text segment Eating trans fat will increase the risk of coronary heartdisease, which is being assessed as slightly related to the systems sub-theme list, mightprompt the student to revise their text to include it, or give a second thought to it.

The experimental study

Research questions

Our study examined the impact of ECS on our students writing in both content andrhetorical aspects, as well as the way in which the system was used, by comparing theperformance of students who used and who did not use the system in an experimentalcontext. Research questions were:

(1) What is the writing performance of the experimental and control groups, in termsof their essay length, submission rate, amount of arguments, holistic essay scores,content and organisation?

(2) How does the system help the experimental group to revise its essays in bothcontent and rhetorical aspects (e.g. organisation of ideas, coherence and cohesion)?

(3) What implications does the study have for using computers for writing?

Design of the study and procedures

An experimental study was designed and conducted in a computer room. The subjects in

the study were year 1 and year 2 undergraduates at our university who had passed theirUse of English in the Hong Kong Advanced Level of Examination. 5 They were assigned tothe treatment and the control groups randomly. Each group consisted of 14 subjects, andeach of them was asked to write a 300-word argumentative essay within 80 minutes. Theexperimental group was allowed to use the essay critiquing system for feedback, and tovisualise the organisation of their current sub-themes. They were allowed to submit forsystem feedback as many times as they preferred. The computer recorded theirsubmissions every time they asked for feedback.

Before the start of the study, students in the treatment group were briefed about therationale of the study and on the system features and corresponding functions on thestudent interface. Submission procedures for system feedback and teacher grading

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Comparison within the experimental groups writing performanceSubmission rate, amount of arguments and writing performance

The experimental group had three submission rates: (1) three to four times; (2) ve to sixtimes; and (3) eight times, corresponding to the different amount of arguments and scores incontent and organisation given by the raters. Four students fell into the rst submissionrate with an average of seven arguments and 6.81 marks; six into the second one with anaverage of six arguments and 6.32 marks; and four into the third one with an average of 10arguments but 5.5 marks only. Submission rate and amount of arguments are, however,inversely proportionate to the score in content and organisation (Table 4). That is, astudent who had a high submission rate (in this case, eight times) and incorporated all sub-themes suggested by the system did not necessarily score high in content and organisation.

According to the raters written comments on students essays, the reason for good or

poor performance seems to hinge on the development and organisation of arguments.Poor development of arguments is the main rhetorical feature commented on by bothraters on students essays in the second and third submission rate groups. Both of themwere concerned with a lack of supporting examples for the sub-themes. For instance:

The ideas are generally clear to the reader. Perhaps you can include more details or examplesabout the eating habits of children.

The ideas are related to the topic, but they could be more organised.

Some ideas have been repeated.

More details should be given to the second point.

More elaboration on the reasons, please!

You have many ideas but they are not elaborated fully.

You talk a lot about fast food, but not enough in the second situation fast food in schools.

Writing strategies and writing performance

Three types of writing strategies have been identied, each type reecting the way in whichECS and its feedback are handled. Similar to the experimental-control comparison results,

Table 4. Relationship among submission rate, amount of arguments and scores in content andorganisation.

GroupNumber

of studentsSubmission

rate

Averageamount of arguments

Average scorein content

& organisation

Experimental 4 34 times 7 6.816 56 times 7 6.324 8 times 10 5.5

Table 3. Descriptive statistics on content and organisation score.

Group Mean (N 14) S.D. (N 14)

Experimental 6.86 1.55Control 6.88 1.56



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there is not much difference in the content and organisation mean scores among the threetypes of strategies (see Table 5).

The rst group of students strategy was that they submitted for feedback a few timesat short intervals when the essay was nearly complete, and this was followed by minorsurface-level cosmetic revision by adding some words taken from the system to support theexisting argument. The subjects essays were already structured with an introduction, bodyand a conclusion in the rst submission. Six subjects (42.86%) adopted this pattern, andthey spent over half of the designated time thinking, revising (some did it on a paper andsome on the computer) and nally seeking feedback several times at short intervals. Theirrst submission took place at 49 minutes on average, and then they moved from aninterval of nine minutes for the second submission down to 0.36 minutes for the fthsubmission. About one to two additional arguments were nally generated. The lengthand rhetorical features of their rst and nal submissions were almost identical. This

group of students did not seem to gain optimal benets from the system. Example 1illustrates the rst pattern and underlines the revision by comparing the introduction andpart of the essay body in the rst and nal submissions. The student writer merely added

Table 5. Average mean scores of the three groups of students.

Experimental Number of students Average mean score in content and organisation

Pattern 1 5 6.4Pattern 2 6 6.5Pattern 3 3 5.9

Example 1

First submission Final submission

(Introduction)The ourish of the fast food shops,

especially MacDonalds has been accusedof worsening the problem of obesityamongst Hong Kong children. Giving theextraordinary amount of salt andavouring adding to the fast food, thereare voices calling for setting rules againstfast food in schools. But, can the problemreally be solved with such ease?

(Introduction)The ourish of the fast food shops, especially

MacDonalds has been accused of worseningthe problem of obesity amongst Hong Kongchildren. Giving the extraordinary amount of salt and avouring adding to the fast food, thereare voices calling for setting rules against fastfood in schools. But, can the problem really besolved with such ease?

(Body Paragraph 1)Undoubtedly, it is not uncommon to nd

that having too much fast food will resultin obesity. From the movie Super SizeMe, we truly know that the thirst for fastfood in the American children hasbrought the gure of obesity to a newheight, and has seriously affected thehealth of the new generation. Therefore,setting rules against fast food seemsinevitable.

(Body Paragraph 1)Undoubtedly, it is not uncommon to nd that

having too much fast food will result in obesitybecause of (cohesive device) the high fat value(cause of obesity) . From the movie Super SizeMe, we truly know that the thirst for fast foodin the American children has brought the gureof obesity to a new height, and has seriouslyaffected the health of the new generation.Therefore, setting rules against fast food seemsinevitable.

Note. The underlined phrase is a new point/ argument suggested by the system.

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submissions took place at 18 minutes or less. Their second submissions took a slightlylonger time than the other two groups, mainly because they had more to add to thesubmissions. Although the average score was not high, their revisions were the mostrigorous, from sentence to discourse level for text development, following the genre of anargumentative writing. The length and organisation of the rst and nal submissions weregreatly improved. For instance, in Example 3, the rst submission of an introduction froma student (same as Figure 1) consisted of one 20-word paragraph only. After receiving thetwo modes of feedback, the student revised some wordings, elaborated topic-related sub-themes, described the situation, identied the problems, supported arguments withexamples and developed the text coherently in the subsequent submissions. At the end of his sixth revision, his nal submission rose to 348 words.

As mentioned previously, the mean score differences among the three patterns werevery close, between 0.1 and 0.6. The mean score of patterns 1, 2 and 3 were 6.4, 6.5 and 5.9,

respectively (Table 5).In summary, the treatment group that received two modes of feedback from ECS didnot outperform the control group, which received no feedback. It seems that the twomodes of system feedback could not guarantee better performance. Nevertheless, thestudents written discourse seems to provide a hint: the crucial factor appears to hinge onthe way in which the students utilised the system feedback appropriately according to theanalysis of the three identied patterns and their corresponding revision strategies.Therefore, we feel that appropriate amount of a number of factors would help students tobenet from the technology, including teacher input on the system and demonstration,discussions about various writing strategies and a recommended approach beforeand after using the system. In other words, the teachers role is indispensable and thecomputer system may not affect writing quality unless it is used in conjunction withappropriate pedagogy. The following are some suggested teaching ideas for teachersconsideration.

Example 3

First submission Second submission Final submission

(Introduction)Nowadays, the

popularity of MacDonaldsamong childrenis still growthalthough more

and more peoplerealise thatMacDonalds isharmful tothemselves. (20words)

(Introduction)Nowadays, the popularity of fast

food (revision of words) , forexample, the MacDonalds(elaboration on fast food) amongstchildren is still growth althoughmore and more people realise

MacDonalds harm to themselves.The ingredients of French fries areour (describing the fact) .However, after being fried, theamount of trans fat, which is a typeof unsaturated fat, exceeded onecan absorb for one day. Eatingtrans fat will increase the risk of coronary heart disease. (Stating the problem) (66 words)

(Introduction)Nowadays, the popularity of

MacDonalds among children isstill growth although more andmore people realise thatMacDonalds harm to themselves.(Describing the phenomenon) Due

to the high fat and oil contained infast food, such as hamburgers andFrench fries, the rate of obesityamong Hong Kong children isgetting more and more serious, andhas become a social problem.(Stating the problem) Therefore,there should be rules against sellingfast food in schools before all is toolate. (Stating the stance) (74words)

Note. The italicised phrases indicate the changes and rhetorical features.

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Using ECSProviding appropriate amount of input before using the system

Before using the system, the teacher could hold a brief session or spare a lesson to:

(1) introduce the system features and functions;(Rationale: to familiarise students with the system features)

(2) demonstrate the steps to upload an assignment to ECS for feedback, revise andsubmit to the teacher;(Rationale: to familiarise students with the operation)

(3) introduce the three writing strategies illustrated with samples;(Rationale: to alert students to the various possible writing strategies)

(4) discuss the strengths and shortcomings of each strategy, and

(Rationale: to raise students awareness of how various strategies impact systemuse and writing quality)(5) recommend an approach a blend of Pattern 2 and Pattern 3

(Rationale: to feed research into teaching. Blending Patterns 2 and 3 meansencouraging students to obtain feedback from the system after writing for a shortperiod of time, followed by continuous and rigorous revision in content andorganisation of ideas)

Based on the recommended approach, the teacher could x a time for students tosubmit their rst drafts and obtain system feedback.

Providing appropriate feedback after using the system

After using the system, the teacher could:

(1) nd out students submission rates and examine the extent of revision (content andrhetorical features) in each draft or between the rst and the nal drafts;(Rationale: enables the teacher to gain a better understanding of the way theirstudents use the system, and how the students revise their essays.)

(2) provide feedback to students in the subsequent lesson (in class verbally, or writtencomments on individual essays along the margin as usual) on:

Content(a) The number of sub-themes they have incorporated into the essay; and(b) The way in which a sub-theme or an argument is developed.

Organisation(c) How well different sub-themes/arguments are linked and developed with

supporting examples or illustrations (coherence and cohesion); and(d) How well the sub-themes/arguments have been reorganised or revised, with

follow-up discussions whenever necessary.(Rationale: enables students to reect on their writing strategies and the bestway to use the system)

Feedback from the teacher on how well students utilise the system to improve theirwriting is denitely essential, though the teacher needs to learn how to give feedback from



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experience, and invest time in reading and comparing students multiple drafts. Additionalsteps that the teacher feels necessary for his or her own students could be added, andpedagogical effectiveness is subject to further classroom research.

Conclusion

Discourse analysis of the experimental groups essays has been insightful, although thecontrol-experiment comparison in several aspects does not show any great quantitativedifferences. Since the study is an experimental one that aims to elicit results within a xedperiod of time, it is worth adopting a longitudinal approach to investigate the impact of the critiquing system after integrating it into EFL writing classrooms for learners of different prociency levels on a larger scale. More work on the system should be done bydeveloping its corpus, such as including and offering more essay topics 10 for students, and

generating some analysis reports for teachers to understand the performance of theirstudents. The study has shown that the critiquing system is a useful tool to facilitate EFLlearners writings, and we believe its teaching effectiveness can be further enhanced if it issupported with appropriate pedagogy. 11

AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank Man-Kam Chan and Patricia Wong for their assistance in handling varioustechnical and editorial work of the project. The project is a Teaching Development Grant Project(TDG/0405/I/03) funded by Hong Kong Baptist University.

Notes1. TOEFL requires candidates to complete an integrated writing task and an independent writing

task. The independent writing task resembles an argumentative essay, giving opinions on an

issue or expressing personal preference, and candidates are required to write 300 words in 30minutes (Rogers, 2007).

2. IELTS requires candidates to complete a graph description task and an argumentative writingtask. The argumentative writing task expects candidates to organise answers clearly, givingexamples to support their points. Candidates are expected to write at least 250 words inapproximately 40 minutes (Jakeman & McDowell, 1999).

3. In the writing paper of HKALE, candidates are required to write a minimum of 500 words on asingle topic on expository writing e.g. persuasion, argument, reporting, development of hypotheses etc. in 1.25 hours (retrieved December 1, 2008 from the Hong Kong Examinationsand Assessment Authority website at http://www.hkeaa.edu.hk/DocLibrary/HKALE/Subject_ and_Syllabuses/2008as(e)_ue.pdf).

4. In our university, students who take the English prociency courses are required to write anargumentative essay of about 400 words as an assignment and in their nal examination, inapproximately 60 minutes.

5. The Hong Kong Advanced Level of Examination (HKALE) is regarded as a universityentrance examination.

6. The marking criteria are adapted from the marking criteria used in the English courses at ouruniversity.

7. In the study, content was glossed as the writers intended meaning about the topic expressed inthe text (i.e. ideas or arguments, in laymans term) rather than the amount of ideas. Rhetoricalfeatures such as coherence, cohesion and development of ideas in or across paragraphs wereimportant (Goldstein, 2005).

8. The two important local public examinations are the Hong Kong Certicate of EducationExamination (HKCEE) for Form Five school leavers and the Hong Kong Advanced LevelExamination (HKALE) for university entrants. In both examinations, it is stated that inmarking writing papers, attention will be paid both to language accuracy and to theorganisation and coherence of the argument presented (Retrieved December 2008 fromHong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority website at http://www.hkeaa.edu.hk/DocLibrary/HKALE/Subject_and_Syllabuses/2008as(e)_ue.pdf/).

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9. The T-test is also used with a small sample size (range from 13 to 77 subjects) in such disciplines

as social work (e.g., Palihawadana & Holmes, 1999; Davis, 2003; Quinn 2006) and IT ineducation (e.g., Schou, 2007).10. The team has further developed four topics.11. The team is investigating the effectiveness of the pedagogy suggested in the paper in a Hong

Kong secondary school.

Notes on contributors

Cynthia Lee is an associate professor in the Language Centre, Hong Kong Baptist University. Herresearch areas are second language teaching and learning, interlanguage pragmatics, IT andlanguage learning.

Kelvin Chi Kuen Wong is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, HongKong Baptist University. He received his PhD from the University of Nottingham. His researchinterests include e-learning, IT in education, Web-based assessments and applications of latentsemantic analysis.

William K. Cheung is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, Hong KongBaptist University. He received his PhD degree in computer science from the Hong Kong Universityof Science and Technology. His research interests include articial intelligence and machine learning,as well as their applications to collaborative ltering, Web mining, distributed data mining, andWeb/grid service management.

Fion S.L. Lee is a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong Baptist University.Her research interests include behaviour in online communities, online learning, electronic business,and information technology strategy.

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Web-based essay critiquing system and EFL students’ writing - a quantitative and qualitative investigation - Cynthia Lee et al