Automated Analysis of Students' Free-text Answers for Computer-Assisted Assessment

Matthieu Hermet (1) , Stan Szpakowicz (2) , Lise Duquette (3)

1 SITE - School of Information Technology and Engineering [Ottawa]
2 Institute of Computer Science [Warszawa]
3 Second Language Institute

We present an approach to Computer-Assisted Assessment of free-text material based on symbolic analysis of student input. The theory that underlies this approach arises from previous work on DidaLect, a tutorial system for reading comprehension in French as a Second Language. The theory enables processing of a free-text segment for assessment to operate without precoded reference material. A study based on a small collection of student answers to several types of questions has justified our approach, and helped to define a methodology and design a prototype.

Keywords: computer assisted language learning (CALL); natural language processing (NLP); computer-assisted assessments; symbolic analysis

Domains: Computer Science [cs]; Technology for Human Learning

Matthieu Hermet, Stan Szpakowicz, Lise Duquette. Automated Analysis of Students' Free-text Answers for Computer-Assisted Assessment. The 13th Conference on Natural Language Processing (TALN 2006). April 10-13, 2006. Leuven (Belgium), 2006, Leuven, Belgium. pp.835-845. ⟨hal-00197397⟩