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Learning Theory and Concepts

Automated Essay Scoring

Instructional Design and Curriculum Frameworks

Automated essay scoring, or AES, is the use of specialized computer programs to assign grades to essays written in an educational setting, a form of educational assessment and an application of natural language processing whose objective is to classify a large set of texts into a small number of discrete grade categories, making it a problem of statistical classification. Growing interest in AES has been driven by rising education costs, demands for accountability, imposed standards, and advancing information technology that promises to measure educational achievement at reduced cost. Its use in high-stakes testing has generated significant backlash, with opponents pointing to research suggesting computers cannot yet grade writing accurately and arguing that such use promotes teaching writing in reductive ways aimed at the test itself.

Facts
Core Claim
Computer programs applying natural language processing can assign grades to written essays that approximate the scores human raters would give. 1
Origin Year
1966 1
Marks Ellis Page's 1966 argument that essays could be scored by computer; his working Project Essay Grade (PEG) program followed in 1968.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Automated essay scoring
Wikimedia Foundation
  • lead paragraph
    Automated essay scoring (AES) is the use of specialized computer programs to assign grades to essays written in an educational setting. It is a form of educational assessment and an application of natural language processing.
  • History section
    In 1966, he argued for the possibility of scoring essays by computer, and in 1968 he published his successful work with a program called Project Essay Grade (PEG).
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