A former Education student sent me 4 samples of AI-graded compositions (primary-school levels), which have been marked by an AI programme. I looked through the samples to find out how well the AI tool is performing in grading the students' compositions. Below are my tentative observations:
1. The programme is very accurate in recognising students' handwritten compositions.
2. The programme then presents a corrected version of the students' composition in computer text. The corrections made are highlighted in red.
3. The corrections (in red) are also inserted into the students' original handwritten version. Students can easily the corrections that have been made by the programme.
3. Generally, the programme does a good job in correcting grammar mistakes.
4. On top of the grammar corrections, the corrected version also contains a small number of re-written sentences, for better cohesion.
5. The programme then presents 'a suggested article', which is a re-written version of the students' original version. This 'suggested article' shows students how the original version can be further improved at a higher level (i.e., not just having the composition grammatically correct), for better coherence and cohesion, and conciseness. This involves the programme making some arbitrary decisons on what to leave out or rewrite. Hence, occasionally, it may misunderstand the writer's intentions and come up with a sentence which doesn't quite make sense. If the original version contains something unclear in meaning, the programme is unable to guess the original intended meaning and re-write accordingly.
6. There is then a 'Sentence Improvement' section, which shows how each of the original sentences is being re-written. The re-write mostly pertains to grammar, and sometimes to choice of words.
7. There is a 'synonym usage' section. It lists out the words in the original version which are somewhat repetitive. Then for each repetitive word, the programme suggests a couple of synonyms. This may not be a useful section (especially for primary students), as students cannot simply replace their original word with the suggested synonyms.
8. The Self-directed Learning section offers 5 suggestions on how the writer can improve his/her writing. Overall, these suggestions are too general to be of much use to students.
9. Overall, the programme does a reliable job in correcting students' mistakes in spelling, grammar, and to a certain extent, choice of word. It is able to rewrite some sentences to improve the written discourse.