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Does Automated Feedback Help Students Learn to Write?

We examined whether an automated essay feedback system could improve the writing performance of college students. Students in a freshmen composition course received no feedback or varying amounts of formative feedback on their first drafts of three practice essays (none, intermittent, or continuous). The students wrote a first and then a revised final draft of an essay in a writing lab held once per week. After a retention interval of 2 weeks, a test essay was written without the use of feedback to assess transfer of learning. Holistic scores showed no reliable gains, but the transfer test showed that students learned to reduce errors of mechanics, usage, grammar, and style. The benefit was found for continuous but not intermittent feedback.