2022 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Open-source English ability test with automatic grading of speaking and writing
| Project/Area Number |
19K00829
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| Research Institution | Kochi University of Technology |
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Principal Investigator |
Bateson Gordon 高知工科大学, 共通教育教室, 教授 (00340018)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | four-skills / online test / essay auto-grade / speak auto-grade / open-source |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The main research achievement of 2022 was to investigate how recently two released AI tools could be incorporated into the Essay (auto-grade) and Speech (auto-grade) plugins. In particular, the I investigated how the ChatGPT engine could be use to provide immediate and personalized feedback to students' written and spoken English. The engine can be prompted to give both formative feedback, in the form of suggestions to improve submitted work, and summative feedback, in the form of a grade and written comments.
A prototype page that provides this feedback was created and trialled on students at the researcher's university. Based on the feedback from this trial, the auto-grade plugins can updated and included in the Moodle site that will host the 4-skills test.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
4: Progress in research has been delayed.
Reason
(1) My university has requested that the English curriculum be redesigned so I have spent significant time on redesigning the English course.
(2) The release of the recent versions of Moodle (4.1 and 4.2) have required that I spend time updating current question-type plugins, including the Essay (auto-grade) question type, to be compatible with those versions.
(3) Family situation required that I return to the UK for December to attend to the affairs of my recently deceased father.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
1. I will incorporate the work I have done with the Speech-to-text (STT) and Text-to-speech (TTS) to develop the Moodle plugins to use browser functionality instead of relying on the Poodll plugin.
2. I will create a preliminary test using Essay and Speech questions and collectdata at my open university about their performance and reliability.
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| Causes of Carryover |
I did not use any funds this year, so the entire amount will be carried forward to next year.
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