The Intelligent Essay Assessor Autograder and Its Effect on Reducing College Writing Anxiety

Abstract

Writing anxiety impedes meta-cognitive writing strategies, which results in a decline in writing skills amongst college freshman composition students. This study examined the effect autograders have on reducing writing anxiety. This paper presented (a) was there significant difference in students’ writing anxiety based on autograder usage for evaluation, (b) was there significant difference in writing anxiety on the basis gender, and (c) was there significant difference in writing anxiety on the basis of age. The participants were 129 community college undergraduate composition students, 67 male students and 62 female students, of first year English Composition Community College classes 2017. The samples were selected using purposive sampling. The data were collected from the Daly/Miller Writing Apprehensive Test adapted for Survey Monkey as a pretest to determine a baseline writing anxiety scale and as a post-test from an experimental group using an autograder to evaluate the writing and a control group using an instructor to evaluate the writing following an in-class writing. Then, the data were analyzed quantitatively using ANCOVA and ANOVA. The result showed no statistically significant difference on the basis of autograder usage, gender, or age. However, the findings confirmed previous research on community college students and indicated community college students’ exhibit writing anxiety. In addition the study almost resulted in statistical significance on the basis of gender and age. Closer analysis revealed students’ writing anxiety decreased with each writing attempt.