Een betere schrijver worden door writing assistants?

Terwijl de halve onderwijswereld momenteel het hoofd breekt over de kansen en bedreigingen van ChatGTP is de opmars van AI in het onderwijs uiteraard al langer aan de gang. Zo maken docenten en studenten steeds vaker gebruik van writing assistants zoals Grammarly en Pigai. Deze assistants maken gebruik van onder andere natural language processing om fouten in teksten te identificeren en feedback of tips over je schrijfsels te genereren. Een nieuwe meta-analyse onderzocht de effectiviteit van writing assistants. De resultaten van deze meta-analyse laten zien dat het gebruiken van zulke writing assistants inderdaad ertoe leidt dat studenten betere teksten gaan schrijven.

Het abstract

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) has been frequently used to provide feedback on student writing. Many empirical studies have examined the effectiveness of AWE on writing quality, but the results were inconclusive. Thus, the magnitude of AWE’s overall effect and factors influencing its effectiveness across studies remained unclear. This study re-examined the issue by meta-analyzing the results of 26 primary studies with a total of 2468 participants from 2010 to 2022. The results revealed that AWE had a large positive overall effect on writing quality (g = 0.861, p < 0.001). Further moderator analyses indicated that AWE was more effective for post-secondary students than for secondary students and had more benefits for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) learners than for Native English Speaker (NES) learners. When the genre of writing was considered, AWE showed a more significant impact on argumentative writing than on academic and mixed writing genres. However, intervention duration, feedback combination, and AWE platform did not moderate the effect of AWE on writing quality. The implications and recommendations for both research and practice are discussed in depth.

Je eigen feedback genereren met rubrics en voorbeelden?

Kunnen leerlingen hun eigen feedback genereren en daarmee hun schrijfprestaties verbeteren? Deze vraag staat centaal in een nieuwe studie van Lipnevich, Panadero en Calistro. In deze studie onderzochten de onderzoekers de effecten van rubrics en exemplars (voorbeelden) op schrijfprestaties van leerlingen in het voortgezet onderwijs door deze leerlingen te vragen deze hulpmiddelen te gebruiken om hun eigen feedback te maken. Uit het onderzoek bleek dat leerlingen in de condities met rubrics en exemplars het meest profiteerden en dat hun prestaties verbeterden na een training over het gebruik van deze hulpmiddelen. De onderzoekers concludeerden dat het loont om leerlingen aan te moedigen om rubrics en voorbeelden te gebruiken om zelf feedback te genereren. Dit kan hun prestaties kan helpen verbeteren en kan ook de werklast voor leraren kan verminderen.

Het abstract

Teachers across educational systems struggle to find time to provide quality feedback to their students. Asking students to create their own feedback has been shown to enhance students’ performance. In this experimental study, we explored the effects of rubrics and exemplars on writing performance, encouraging students to employ these tools for self-feedback generation. Two hundred six 9th- and 10th-grade students participated. Students were asked to write an essay and revise it based on the information provided to them under four conditions: control, rubrics, exemplars, and combined condition (rubrics and exemplars). After submitting the revised version of their essay, students in experimental conditions were trained on how to use rubrics and/or exemplars. Students were then asked to write another essay and revise it based on the information consistent with their experimental group membership (i.e., control, rubric, exemplars, combined). We found that students in the rubrics condition benefited the most, closely followed by students in the exemplars condition, and then the combined condition. The performance across conditions was somewhat variable for the three performance outcomes. Furthermore, the improvement in the usage of the tools following the training session was the highest for the exemplars condition. We conclude that teachers can encourage students to use both rubrics and exemplars to generate self-feedback and improve performance. This way, teachers’ workload can be significantly decreased.

Impact statement

This study suggests that high school students can effectively use rubrics and exemplars to self-assess, generate self-feedback, and revise their essays based on it. That is, rubrics and exemplars have a potential to both enhance self-feedback that leads to higher performance and to increase teachers’ efficient use of time. 

 Lipnevich, A. A., Panadero, E., & Calistro, T. (2022). Unraveling the effects of rubrics and exemplars on student writing performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xap0000434

Negatieve impact van schoolsluitingen op schrijfvaardigheid van basisschoolleerlingen

Over de impact van de schoolsluitingen als gevolg van het coronavirus is al veel geschreven. Een nieuw onderzoek, gepubliceerd in het Journal of Educational Psychology, beschrijft de impact van de schoolsluitingen in Noorwegen op de schrijfvaardigheid van leerlingen in groep 3. De schoolsluitingen in Noorwegen duurden 7 weken en tijdens deze periode gaven de Noorse leerkrachten online onderwijs. De studie van Skar, Graham en Huebner laat zien dat de schoolsluitingen een significante negatieve impact hadden op op de schrijfvaardigheid van leerlingen. De auteurs noemen hiervoor verschillende verklaringen: er was eerder sprake van emergency remote instruction dan van effectief ontworpen online onderwijs en veel jonge leerlingen hadden slechts minimaal contact met hun leerkracht tijdens de schoolsluitingen.

Het uit het abstract:

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the sudden cancellation of in-class instruction for many students around the world presented an unprecedented disruption in children’s education. As the COVID-19 pandemic took form, multiple concerns were raised about the potential negative impact on students’ learning. The current study examined this proposition for children’s writing. We compared the quality of writing, handwriting fluency, and attitude toward writing of first grade Norwegian students during the COVID-19 pandemic (421 girls, 396 boys), which included emergency remote instruction for almost 7 weeks, with first grade students in the same schools a year before the pandemic began (835 girls, 801 boys). After controlling for variance due to national test scores, school size, proportion of certified teachers, students per special education teacher, school hours per student, student gender, and native language, we found that students attending first grade during the pandemic had lower scores for writing quality, handwriting fluency, and attitude toward writing than their first grade peers tested a year earlier before the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Implications for policy and instruction as well as future research are presented.