A Study Of Perceived Usefulness Of Automated Writing Evaluation System Among Middle School Students With Different English Writing Proficiency Levels

Automated writing evaluation(AWE)system is a new type of feedback to teaching English writing,which has drawn great attention.Previous studies mainly focus on the effects but comparatively neglect users’ feelings and attitudes.In 1986,Davis proposed the technology acceptance model(TAM)which explained one’s psychological factors when accepting a new technology and stressed its great influence on one’s acceptance and effects.Among these factors,perceived usefulness(PU)is the most influential one.Accordingly,this study applies AWE system in middle school English writing teaching,aiming to answer the following questions:(1)What’s the difference between PU of AWE feedback of middle school students with different English writing proficiency levels?(2)What factors will affect the PU of AWE feedback of middle school students with different English writing proficiency levels?(3)How does the PU of AWE feedback influence the performance of middle school students with different English writing proficiency levels in English writing?Participants were 101 students from 2 classes in Grade 9 of a city middle school in northern Jiangsu.Based on the average score of latest three exams,top 30 students were grouped as high-level group and last 30 students were low-level group.During the three months,all the participants finished 10 writing tasks.After that,a questionnaires on PU were given to them and statistics were calculated according to the group list.Based on the results of questionnaires,4 students from each group were chosen as interviewees in order to seek the factors which caused differences.Students’ writing records in AWE system were analyzed and compared to show students’ writing performance.The results are as follows:Firstly,although middle school students had a high level of PU on AWE feedback in general,high-level students’ PU of AWE feedback was significantly lower than low-level students,especially on improving passage content and revising times.Secondly,four factors found which may affect students’ PU of AWE feedback were language knowledge,self-efficacy,learning motivation and influence of significant people.For language knowledge,feedback on word spelling and grammar mistakes provided by AWE system was more suitable for low-level students.In addition,high-level students had high self-efficacy and they tended to believe in themselves and teacher’s feedback.However,with low self-efficacy,low-level students revised their passages according to system feedback repeatedly and got higher and higher scores,which made them more confident than before.As for learning motivation,high-level students attached more importance to their performance in exams and they thought some words suggested by system cannot be used in exams.Comparatively,the demand for low-level students was not so strong.Finally,parents’ attitude about using AWE system was an important factor.More parents of high-level students didn’t want their children to use computer as they feared that would influence their children’s study and physical health.In turn,it indirectly influenced students’ attitudes towards the system.Finally,because of different levels of PU,students perform differently in English writing.Low-level students got greater improvement in English writing,represented by higher scores and more words in a passage.Although there was progress in high-level students’ writing,it was not so significant as that of low-level students.In addition,low-level students revised more times and their motivation was high and lasting.High-level students revised more times at the beginning only,and their revising motivation was shown as an inverted-U curve.Moreover,low-level students would use more revising strategies such as checking textbooks and looking up dictionaries.And high-level students only revised their passages according to the system feedback.Therefore,teacher should provide feedback about the content to high-level students and recommend some excellent passages written by them to keep their self-efficacy.Moreover,teacher should also encourage high-level students focus more on ability improvement rather than scores in exams.Conversation with parents and the popularization of application of education technology are essential tasks to be carried out.Paying more attention to low-level students’ English calligraphy is important as well.In the end,results of the study should be further proved and strategies proposed should be practiced.