AI's potential role in enhancing a writer's prowess, as perceived by a researcher
In a groundbreaking study, Jennifer Meyer, an assistant professor at the University of Vienna in Austria, has found that artificial intelligence (AI) feedback can significantly improve student essays. Meyer, who has been studying the use of AI bots in education for several years, randomly assigned 200 German high school students to receive AI feedback after writing a draft of an essay in English.
The revised essays of students who received AI feedback were found to be stronger than those of students who were told to revise but didn't receive help from AI. Interestingly, students who received AI feedback also reported feeling more motivated to rewrite their essays compared to those who didn't get feedback.
However, the study on Asian American students in the AI essay grading study found that they lost more points, but the reason for this remains unknown. Meyer remains concerned about giving AI tools to very weak writers and to young children who haven't developed basic writing skills.
Meyer's approach to AI essay feedback avoids general praise and instead focuses on constructive criticism. In her experiments, she inserted AI only after the first draft was done as part of the revision process. Meyer suggests that students can use AI, such as ChatGPT, to write a sample essay that meets their teacher's assignment and grading criteria.
However, real teachers found Meyer's praise-free feedback approach to be too negative and wanted to restore praise. On a second, fresh essay topic, the students who had previously received AI feedback didn't write any better than the students who hadn't been helped by AI.
A much smaller study published earlier this year by researchers at MIT found that using ChatGPT to help write an essay made students' brains less engaged during the initial writing process, but using it later boosted brain activity.
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