IngentaConnect On-line Grading of Student Essays: PEG goes on the World Wide Web

Authors: Shermis M. D.; Mzumara H. R.; Olson J.; Harrington S.

Source: Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Volume 26, Number 3, 1 June 2001 , pp. 247-259(13)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Abstract:

This study examined the feasibility of employing Project Essay Grade (PEG) software to evaluate web-based student essays that serve as placement tests at a large Mid-Western university. The results of two experiments are reported. In the first experiment, the essays of 1293 high school and college students were used to create a statistical model for the PEG software. PEG identified 30 proxes (observed variables) that could be incorporated into an evaluation of the written work. In the second experiment, the ratings from a separate sample of 617 essays were used to compare the ratings of six human judges against those generated by the computer. The inter-judge correlation of the human raters was r = 0.62 and was r = 0.71 for the computer. Finally, the PEG software was an efficient means for grading the essays with a capacity for approximately three documents graded every second. Cycle time from the websubmission of the document to producing a report score was about 2 minutes. Although PEG would appear to be a cost-effective means of grading written work of this type, several cautionary notes are included.

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