29 Utilization Of Educational Communication Technology In The Assessment Of Secondary School Students’ Essay Writing

Abstract

Writing is a very crucial skill in the academic life of all students. It is a skill that determines the success of students in school and in life. This is why it can be called a lifelong skill. Due to the role of writing in students’ academic achievement, its assessment needs to be given a top-notch consideration. The consistent call for the utilization of educational communication technology in instructional delivery should encompass instructional assessment especially in the aspect of essay writing. This paper examines the utilization of educational communication technology in the assessment of secondary school students’ essay writing; issues and challenges. The paper also highlights the current assessment methods and the need for a change. The paper recommends the adoption of a wide range of educational communication media and technology especially a 21st century technological essay writing assessment software.

Keywords: Educational Communication Technology, Assessment, Essay Writing

Introduction

Man in his search for easier, faster and accurate ways of doing things gave rise to so many inventions and innovations in various spheres of life. Technology is one of those inventions and there has being progressive technological innovations over the decades. In the area of education, history has it that there has been consistent technological developments which are geared towards facilitating learning and solving problems in the sector. A brief highlight in this sequential technological development globally emanated from writing materials (slates, blackboards/chalkboards, printed materials) audio and visual devices. The earliest inventions such as slates, black/chalkboards, pencils among others were referred to as radical technologies (Sonoma, 2015). Man has not relented in his efforts in making teaching and learning more interactive and engaging. The turn of 20th century ushered in digital technologies. There was a total exodus from the mechanical technologies of learning to a digital era. Many sophisticated communication tools were developed among them are computers, smart boards, cell phones, internet, e-books, high power storage systems, retrieval systems and educational software. No wonder Dey (2017) asserts that educational technology has evolved from pre-mechanical to the mechanical and to the electronic and now to digital forms. Hence the narrative in educational practices globally changed.

This field of study ‘Educational Technology’ has been assigned different meanings by different authors. Educational Technology operationally can be defined as is the practical application of scientific knowledge to teaching and learning. It is the use of information and communication technologies in the teaching and learning process. ‘Educational Technology is a communication process resulting from the application of scientific methods to the behavioural science of teaching and learning’, UNESCO 2001 (as cited in Dey, 2017, p.6). This definition presupposes that educational technology as a communication process, has an input, process and output model that is centred on total human development through teaching and learning. The input process involves all the stakeholders in the educational system ranging from the curriculum planners, the curriculum design, school system to teachers and students while the process are the methods, strategies and techniques of teaching and learning. The output is basically the performance of students or learning outcomes. Based on this fact, Educational Technology for School Leaders (n.d.) declare that educational and communication technology is a complex and integrated process that involves people, procedures, ideas, devices and organization, for analyzing problems, and devising, implementing, evaluating and managing solutions to those problems involved in all aspects of human learning.

Educational Technology has played a great role in the teaching and learning process. Learning has become more interactive and engaging. Collaborative learning is encouraged. Teaching is more practical than theoretical. Information is made more accessible with constant up-date in knowledge. Mass of information can easily be stored and retrieved. Students are exposed to lots of skills. Generally, there has being increased efficiency and effectiveness in current educational practices. Educational Technology has indeed brought social constructivism theories of learning into practice.

In the area of English language instruction, a lot has been done. There are online interactive lessons, electronic dictionary, videos, learning apps, internet, databases for resources to facilitate teaching and learning in English language etc. The teacher-student interaction has significantly being promoted. Stosic (2015) posits that educational technology provides interactive multi-media content which motivates students to work independently and provides instant feedback for the teacher and students. Shyamlee (2012) asserts that technology has promoted activities and initiatives of students in English language class; inspired students’ critical thinking and enhanced their communication skills. Stockwell (2013) states that advances in technology have made it easier for teachers and students of English language to access a wide range of resources in terms of authentic input. The ripple effect of exposure of students to these modern educational technologies in English language learning is the acquisition and mastery of the language skills. Studies have equally shown significant improvement in students’ achievement in the four language skills through the use of technology. Peregoy and Boyle in Ahmad (2018) carried out a study on using technology in improving learners’ reading and writing skills. The results revealed that technology enhance learners’ reading and writing skills. Alsaleen (2014) conducted a research on using ‘whatsapp’ applications in English dialogue journals to improve learners’ writing, vocabulary, word choice and speaking ability. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that the use of whatsapp improved learners’ writing skills, speaking skills, vocabulary and word choice. Also Lin and Yang (2011) performed a study to investigate whether ‘wiki’ technology would improve learners’ writing skills. The study indicated that the immediate feedback received by the learners was beneficial to their writing skills. Learners learnt vocabulary, spelling and sentence structure by reading their classmates’ work.

The Federal Government of Nigeria in recognition of the role of educational technology, included in her National Policy on education thus: ‘In recognition of the prominent role of Information Technology (IT) in advancing knowledge and skills necessary for effective functioning in a knowledge based world, Government shall provide adequate infrastructure and develop capacity for effective utilization of Information Technology in all levels of education’ (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2013, p.29). The use of technology in instruction delivery in English language has been given a prominent consideration. English language curriculum for junior and senior secondary education includes the use of multimedia contents such as video clips, films, language games, cartoons, video tapes, charts, potters, tape recorders and other audio and visual materials (Federal Ministry of Education, 2009). This establishes the fact that the use of educational technology in English language instruction is receiving the deserved attention.

Utilization of Educational and Communication Technology in Assessment of Essay Writing; Issues and Challenges

The bane of the problem is that there is lack of utilization of any form of educational technology (software) in the assessment of essay writing in Nigeria.. Essay writing is one of the major ways of engaging students in the act of writing. It requires students to express their ideas in the target language in a coherent whole. Students are expected to demonstrate mastery of writing skills by giving detailed account of their opinions, events, process or educate their audience. Fleming (2018) defines essays as brief non-fiction compositions that describe, clarify, argue, or analyze a subject matter. The acquisition of this skill determines students’ academic achievement. Students’ engagement in essay writing equips them with a skill that sees them through in and out of school. In support of this view, Ghalib and Al-Hattam (2015) opine that good writing skills are critical to academic and professional success; leads to higher academic achievement, promotion, good job and professional growth. At the senior secondary school level, students are expected to write lengthy essays on different topics after weekly instructions in essay writing. These essays are meant to be assessed regularly which serve as feedback to the teachers and the students. The feedback from the regular assessment of these essays helps teachers to make several decisions on instructional delivery. The students as well benefit from this feedback as it provides them with record of their learning progress and directionality for improvement. This is why Yu (2012) defines assessment as the systematic collection, review and use of information about educational programme, undertaken for the purpose of improving students’ learning and development. Edglossary (2015) adds that assessment in education is the variety of methods or tools that educators use to evaluate, measure and document the academic readiness, learning progress, skill acquisition and educational needs of students.

The definitions highlight the important roles of assessment. Through assessment of students’ essay writing, the teacher can deduce the nature and quality of students’ thought process, their extent of cognitive development and their creativity level. Writing assessment is a great indicator of students’ real achievement in learning. This is why indirect assessment of writing (multiple-choice test) has always been deemed inadequate in testing writing skills because the true learning outcome cannot be ascertained. Cooper (1984) supports this view by positing that direct assessment method through essay tests is considered more valid then multiple-choice tests. Breland (1983) is also of the opinion that multiple-choice test cover only a narrow range of writing skills. The direct method of essay writing assessment involves students demonstrating their writing abilities by performing the act of writing. Questions that require students to write essays are examples of direct assessment method. This method of assessment is commonly used in assessing students’ essays in secondary schools in Nigeria. External examination bodies such as West African Examination Council (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO) and National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB) also use direct method of writing assessment as it seems to give more reliable and valid result of students’ writing abilities. But the reliability and validity of this assessment method is undermined by the scoring approach. The analytic and holistic (impressionistic) approaches are commonly used in the direct assessment method of essay writing.

Through direct observation, it was discovered that students’ essays are not regularly assessed. Most times teachers teach essay writing and base their assessment on multiple-choice questions. The only time students’ essays are marked is during the termly examinations which they may or may not get to see their scripts to know how and why they have the essay scores allotted their written work. Owolabi (2009) opines that in Nigeria today, the dominant assessment practice is the one shot assessment which is targeted during examinations which is to the detriment of formative assessment. On the other hand, some teachers who regularly assess students’ writing base their judgement on impressionistic scoring approach which is very subjective and does not represent students’ true achievement. In impressionistic scoring approach, the teacher bases the total essay scores on just one aspect of writing instead of assigning scores to each element or sub-skills of writing. Ghalib and Al-Hattam (2015) report that some secondary school teachers confirmed that general impression (holistic) marking was the norm. There were no clear cut dimensions or rubrics for assessing students’ essays rather marks were awarded based on general impression. Several studies have been carried out comparing the use of analytic and impressionistic scoring approaches. Most of the findings indicated that analytical scoring approach though it is time consuming gives a more detailed and defined feedback on students’ achievement which helps to guide instructional needs of both teachers and students. Hunter, Jones and Randhawa (1996) carried out a study on holistic versus analytic scoring for large scale assessment of writing. The study revealed that analytic scoring has the advantage of providing more detailed diagnostic information about students’ strengths and weaknesses in various writing skills. Nakamura (2004) compared holistic and analytic scoring method in the assessment of writing using the Bachman and Plamer’ 1996 framework for test usefulness. It was discovered that analytic scoring had higher reliability than holistic scoring; analytic scoring was more appropriate in terms of construct validity for L2 writers as different aspects of writing ability develop at different rates; analytic scoring was more authentic and practical and had higher impact on the students due to the fact that more scales provide useful diagnostic information for placement and/or instructional needs. In collaboration with the above findings, Ahour (2009) in his study, revealed that analytic scoring has a positive impact in instructional situations in terms of diagnosing areas of students’ weaknesses and strengths in writing.

Based on the findings of some of these studies, there is no gainsaying that analytic scoring approach to essay writing assessment gives a more reliable and valid feedback on students’ essay writing achievement. Its regular use in essay assessment will greatly enhance students writing skills. Probably, the steady decline in secondary school students’ result in West African Examination Council (WAEC) could be a result of lack/irregular assessment of their essays through analytic scoring. The Chief Examiner’s report for 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 (https://waeconline.org) consistently noted that students lack competence in writing skills especially in the area of paragraph development, expression and mechanics of writing. If students are exposed to analytic scoring in (which is the approach used in marking waec essays) formative assessment of their essays, they will surely develop the required ability of handling the sub-skills over time. Direct writing assessment through analytic scoring no doubt is difficult and time consuming but its qualitative judgement is remedial in students’ developmental writing stage.  McClure (1995) and Hunter et al (1996) affirm that though essay writing assessment is basically an inseparable key in educational process, it has always being a difficult, thorny and troublesome subject matter. This does not mean that it cannot be surmountable. Could the above descriptive adjectives contribute to the reasons why teachers do not use analytical scoring approach? An informal interview with some English language teachers on why they don’t use the analytic scoring approach revealed that class size, workload and time are their major constraints. Analytic scoring is time consuming and teachers are required to assess overwhelming number of students’ essays. Class size is one of the educational problems in a developing country like Nigeria. The number of students in a class is directly proportionate to the teacher’s workload and when it is large, it has a negative co-relation to students’ achievement. A standard minimum class size is 20 per teacher (Tanner, 2009).  Going by the analysis of Edglossary (2015) on the use of analytic scoring, a teacher who has three classes and each of the classes has 100 students will probably spend 15mins to mark each essay. If this is multiplied by 300 essay scripts, the teacher will spend 160hrs approximately one week in assessing the essays at the detriment of other teaching and learning activities that should occupy the teacher’s time. It is of utmost necessity to use the automated essay scoring software in the assessment of secondary school students’ essays in Nigeria.

Benefits of Automated Essay Scoring System (AES)

An automated essay scoring system (AES) is a software application which automatically grades students’ essays using artificial intelligence. It is a software that grades students’ essays faster using an inbuilt rubrics. In developed countries, there are different automated writing assessment softwares which are adapted to their scoring system. They are: PearsonWrite To Learn, emarking assistant, ETS e-rater Scoring Engine, Project Essay Grader, Knowledge Analysis Technologies (KAT) etc. These AES analyse written essays based on many essay subs-kills and give instant, accurate and consistent results.

The use of AES will be a huge relief to teachers and other educators. It will be another milestone achievement in Nigeria in the area of assessment. Students’ essays will be assessed within a short period of time, no matter the number or the length of the essay. The instant feedback will be very motivating for students to work harder. The interactive nature which the two scoring approaches lack makes it a 21st century innovation and this also makes it more engaging for the students. Bhardorfar and Omidvar (2014) confirm that the instant feedback by a scoring system offers additional value by its ability to track mistakes and link students instantly to exercises that focus on specific errors. Studies conducted on the use of AES revealed that:

• There is a strong correlation with human ratings and machine ratings
• The instant feedback from AES motivates students to work hard and improve their scores
• AES offer consistency in grading
• AES is time-saving
• AES is cost-saving        (Bryne, 2010; Lewis, 2013 & Wilson, 2015)

Conclusion

Assessment of writing is a major evaluative activity in education process. Students need to be equipped with this lifelong skill (writing skill) by constantly evaluating their essays and giving them instant and accurate feedback. It is of a great necessity to key into the technological trends of 21st century in order to make the difficulties associated with assessment of writing a thing of the past. It is high time we joined the developed countries of the world to share in the invaluable benefits of using automated essay scoring software in assessing secondary school students’ essays.

Recommendations

Based on the above facts on the use of automated essay scoring software in the assessment of secondary school students’ essays, the following recommendations are made:

1. The Nigerian Association for Educational Communications and Technology (NAECT) in collaboration with Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) and Language experts should develop a wide range of education and communication technology software that will be adapted to our scoring rubrics for essay assessment at secondary school level.
2. Nigerian government and other stakeholders should fund researchers and software developers of automated essay assessment software.
3. There should be a national competition for Nigerian undergraduates on the development of automated essay assessment software.

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https://waeconline.org

Correspondents can be directed to:

Ngozi Ugonma Emelogu

Department of Arts Education

University of Nigeria, Nsukka

ngozi.emelogu@unn.edu.ng