Short Research Papers
Student Perceptions of Auto-graded
English Learning Activities
Robert Remmerswaal and Rachel Barington
Sojo University
This paper explores student perceptions of auto-graded activities used in a first-year English
communications class. Due to restrictions related to COVID-19, an online curriculum wasquickly developed in Moodle with a focus on independent learning. Some assumptions
were made regarding student English ability and technology proficiency which led to thecreation of five auto-graded activities to develop student listening, writing, pronunciation,and understanding of English. Student perceptions were gathered to determine the validityof assumptions made and to determine the usefulness of the auto-graded activities for
future use. A mixed-methods survey gathered student perceptions of whether learning had
occurred, the content level appropriateness, and the ease of use of the technology. This study
found that all the activities led to most students believing they had improved a specific skill
and recommending the activity be used again. Suggestions for improving each activity are
given based on student feedback.
本論文では、1年生の英語コミュニケーションクラスで使用した自動採点のアクティ
ビティに対する学生の認識を考察した。COVID-19による制限のため、Moodleでオンラインカリキュラムを迅速に作成し、自主学習に焦点を当てた。学生の英語力とテクノロジーの習熟度についてある程度仮定した上で、英語のリスニング、ライティ
ング、発音、理解を深めるための5つの自動採点アクティビティを作成した。仮定の妥当性を検証し、自動採点アクティビティの将来的な有用性を判断するために、学生の認識を収集した。混合法による調査では、学びがあったかどうか、コンテンツレ
ベルの適切性、テクノロジーの使いやすさについて尋ねた。本研究により、すべてのアクティビティにおいて、ほとんどの学生が何らかのスキルを向上させたと考え、そのアクティビティを再度使用することを推奨していることがわかった。また、学生からのフィードバックに基づき、各アクティビティを改善するための提案をここで行い
たい。

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Remmerswaal & Barington

The English curriculum at Sojo University is designed to include fun, accessible
activities to increase student confidence in their English abilities (SojoInternational Learning Center, n.d.). In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
adapting this curriculum was a challenge. Students who would normally takeclasses face-to-face (F2F) were forced into an online environment in what has
been referred to as Emergency Response Teaching (ERT). A method of content
delivery had to be planned and developed in a short amount of time. Across allten departments at Sojo University (Appendix), the first-year English curriculum
is required for all Japanese citizens. During this study, all F2F, student-student
interaction was highly restricted, and the first five weeks of the English course(EC1) were taught online, an unexpected method of course delivery for bothstudents and teachers.
To meet this challenge, content delivery was facilitated through the Moodle
learning management system. Moodle was used in previous years for managing
F2F classes, so it was already available. Moodle has many activity and resource
types within the core version with additional plug-ins and embedding capability(Moodle, n.d.). When choosing specific activities and their difficulty level, thecurriculum team considered the perspective of the students as Bates (2014)
describes with his SECTIONS framework. This framework provides several
areas of consideration for choosing the appropriate technology for the classroom.
The following areas from the framework were unknown to the curriculum
planners:• What digital skills do you expect your students to have before they start
the program? (Section 8.2)
• What principles do I need to use when designing multimedia materials
for their most effective use? (Section 8.5)
• How intuitively easy to use, both by students and by yourself, is thetechnology you are considering? (Section 8.3)
• How reliable is the technology? (Section 8.3)
Most of the assumptions made by the curriculum team were related to
students’ English ability and technical proficiency. Some activities were easily
tailored to the average student, such as writing assignments, due to the high104

Student Perceptions of Auto-graded Activities, OCJSI 3, pages 103-121

level of teacher input with grading. Auto-graded activities (a feature of Moodle),on the other hand, were not easily adjusted and remained unchanged during
the semester. This study considered the accuracy of these assumptions todetermine if the five auto-graded online activities (New Words, Quiz, Reading,
Pronunciation, Dictation) could be used in subsequent years. The following
research questions were asked.
1. How did students perceive learning with auto-graded activities?
2. How did activities meet the current English level of most students?
3. How easy was the technology for students to use?
The five auto-graded activities were chosen for three reasons. First, thetechnical aspects needed to be simple enough for the students to complete
independently. Second, content difficulty needed to meet students at theircurrent English proficiency. Third, activities needed to be possible to create
within the Moodle system. While activities were designed under ERT
constraints, they still took significant time and effort to make and are easily
shared, modified, and re-used in future years. Therefore, findings may play asignificant role in the design of future curricula.
The course required content made for independent learning that wasappropriately levelled to challenge students while not overwhelming teacherswith marking and feedback responsibilities. The validity of auto-graded activities
and using student feedback to determine their success is discussed.
Feedback is important for students in regulating student learning (Barboza& da Silva, 2016). Students need to understand where they make mistakes toimprove and make progress towards course objectives. Barboza and da Silva go
on to summarize that feedback is most meaningful when it is given in a timely
fashion. In determining what is timely, Bayerlein (2014) conducted a survey
with undergraduate and graduate accounting students. He found that autogenerated feedback substantially improved student perceptions of feedback
constructiveness. He also found that there were no significant changes inperceptions between timely feedback and extremely timely feedback. Whilesome argue that auto-graded activities can be dehumanizing, they are also shown
to be very accurate (Tang & Rich, 2017). With this understanding, 40% of the105Remmerswaal & Barington

grade came from automated activities. These auto-graded activities allowed
for timely feedback, without teacher input during the course. Teachers could
then allocate more time for other teaching responsibilities and provide timely,
meaningful feedback on teacher-assessed activities.
Each English course at Sojo University has specific learning objectives but
are unified with an overall goal for students to learn in a fun and accessible way.
This goal is very subjective and dependent on the perceptions of students. In
Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1995), a person’s belief in their ability toorganize, execute actions, or manage a situation is more likely to affect behavior
than a person’s actual ability. With this understanding, student-reported learning
could provide greater evidence of meeting that goal than learning demonstrated
through a test.
Students have also been found to be accurate reporters of their learning.
Eckerth (2005) showed that L2 learners can accurately report on learning specificwords, structures, phrases, and expressions. Gravestock and Gregor-Greenleaf(2008) reported that students are suited to evaluate their own learning and areasthat affect them. Gravestock et al. (2009) highlighted several studies that foundstudents reliably and effectively evaluated teaching behaviors, the amount they
have learned, the ease or difficulty of their learning experience in the course, theworkload in the course, and the value of the assessments used in the course.
However, there are limitations within any survey tool, mainly that terms
used within a survey may be interpreted different between students (Gravestock
et al., 2009). For instance, when asking about technical difficulties, each student
will have variable levels of acceptable difficulty, even among students with similar
technical proficiency. Another area of consideration is that no matter the validity
or reliability of an instrument, they can be misused or misinterpreted (Menges,
2000). Small differences can easily be given too great of importance.
To avoid the misinterpretation of results, the researchers used an inductive
approach to determine the success of a particular activity, as recommended
by Bates (2014). Inductive logic, as defined by the Stanford Encyclopaedia of
Philosophy, should have the following Criterion of Adequacy,
As evidence accumulates, the degree to which the collection of true evidence
106Student Perceptions of Auto-graded Activities, OCJSI 3, pages 103-121

statements comes to support a hypothesis, as measured by the logic, should
tend to indicate that false hypotheses are probably false and that true
hypotheses are probably true.” (Hawthorne, 2021, para 2)
With nearly 800 students with varying English levels and activities chosenfrom necessity, using deductive reasoning is impractical. Enough evidence will begathered from student responses, with the interpretations of the researchers whotaught this curriculum, that a reasonable hypothesis of success or failure is likely
to be true.

Methods

In course development, assumptions about the students and technology were
made. It was expected that students would be using Moodle for the first timeand for some, it would be the first time using a computer. Expectations werethat digital skills would be quite low, but with a few guides, Moodle would
be appropriately easy and become intuitive for the students. Similarly, thetechnology was assumed reliable. Material was designed in a repetitive way as
it was assumed the most effective; technology would only need to be learned at
the beginning of the semester. Assumptions in developing skills through these
activities are discussed within each activity type.
Activities
Students were required to complete eight topic-based units, each with four
sections. Within each section the same five activity types were repeated, eachgroup of five centered around a primary text. For example, unit 1 was SelfIntroduction and had four primary texts, one for each section. All activities camewith a how-to guide that included screenshots with instructions in both English
and Japanese. These activities are described as follows:
New Words: A Moodle plug-in by Poodll was designed to introduce 1012 new vocabulary in each section. This iteration had five tasks, and students
were given unlimited tries. First was to read a Japanese text and choose thecorresponding English text from a pool of choices. Second, they were to listen
to one of several selected Text-to-Speech (TTS) voices speak in English andtype what they heard. Third, they read a Japanese text and typed the English
107Remmerswaal & Barington

translation. Fourth, they completed a pronunciation task by recording their voice
reading the written vocabulary. Finally, a random review of vocabulary learned in
the course was given with Japanese text being matched to the equivalent English
translation. It was assumed vocabulary would assist student working vocabulary
and pronunciation.
Quiz: This utilized the H5P plug-in and was designed to increase listening
skills and student understanding of the unit text. In part one, students had theoption to review online flashcards of the vocabulary they studied in the New
Words activity. In part two, students listened to various TTS voices reading theunit text and would drag and drop approximately 20 words to the appropriate
blanks. Third, students answered a variety of comprehension questions. The
entirety of this activity could be done an unlimited number of times within the
two-week deadline of the unit.
Reading: The ReadAloud plugin by Poodll was used to create this task. This
activity measured reading speed and accuracy. Students read a unit text with a
one-minute time limit, at which point the recording would stop. AI auto-marked
the words as correct or incorrect, and scores were based on number of words
correct per minute. This started with unlimited attempts but was restricted to asingle attempt after the first unit due to server capacity. The goal was to increase
student reading fluency and pronunciation.
Pronunciation: This activity used a Speak the Words Set content type inthe H5P plug-in. Students were prompted with a sentence in Japanese thatthey translated and spoke in English. The AI then evaluated the speech andtranscribed what was understood. For each sentence, students had unlimited
tries. The goal was for pronunciation to improve.
Dictation: The final activity was a simple dictation where students would
listen to and type language from the unit. Like the pronunciation task, students
would have unlimited tries. This task was embedded in a Moodle Page module,
and the sentences were read by various TTS voices. Both listening and writing
accuracy were the goals for these activities.

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Assessment
A survey was given to all 789 first-year students across ten departments in thelast three weeks of the spring 2020 semester. All participants provided informed
consent in line with university research ethics procedures. A six-point Likert scale
was utilized, eliminating neutral as an option.
The survey was designed to gather the student perspectives in the areas
where assumptions were made. The survey questions were derived in English by
the authors and translated by university staff. The student survey was in Japaneseusing Microsoft Forms to collect responses online. No personal information wascollected. All students were asked their gender and their department, allowing
for demographic-based analysis. All survey questions are listed in results (Figures
1-5).
Each activity had one or two stated learning goals; for each goal a survey
statement asked for agreement that learning had occurred. This was in search
for an answer to research question one: How did students perceive learningwith auto-graded activities? The statements, “This activity was a good fit for my
English level” and “This activity was below my English level” were asked for eachactivity to answer research question two: How did activities meet the current
English level of most students? An assumption was made that a student who
disagreed the activity was a good fit and disagreed the activity was below theirEnglish level would find the activity was too difficult. Likewise, disagreementwith the first statement but agreement with the second led to the assumption theactivity would be too easy.
The next two survey statements related to technology ease of use andtechnical difficulties in connection to research question three: How easy was thetechnology for students to use? They were followed by the final survey statement
which recommended using the activity again next year. This final statement wasan additional tool to measure the overall perception of an activity.
These Likert statements were repeated in five sections, one for each activity.
An optional, open-ended question concluded each section. Open-ended
questions were included for students to offer feedback on ways to improve theactivity, make the content level more appropriate, and improve ease of use. These
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written responses were translated with Google translation services, which has
been shown to produce translations adequate for college level admission (Groves& Mundt, 2015) and was considered adequate for the purposes of this study.
This feedback was useful for consideration when hypothesizing the usefulness ofan activity.

Results

Of the 789 first-year students, 583 responded to the survey, giving a response
rate of 73.9%. Overall, the results were positive, with most students agreeing, forall five activities, to their recommendation and to have learned or improved an
English skill. When commenting, students were free to leave both positive andnegative comments. Students often commented with only one type of comment,
but when comments were both positive and negative, they were included in both
totals.
New Words
From the Likert statements, nearly 95% of respondents agreed that their
vocabulary increased, and 84% thought it was a good fit for their level (Figure 1).
Of the 16% who disagreed, 11.3% found it too easy and 4.7% found it too difficult
as determined by their subsequent responses to the statement, “This activity was
below my English level”. Nearly three quarters of students agreed the technology
was easy to use. Even so, nearly 60% of students reported having some sort oftechnical difficulty. Overall, 82.7% of students agreed with a recommendation to
use the activity again the following year.
The comments provided some insight into these figures. A total of 442
students commented, with 245 positive and 224 negative comments. A common
praise for the New Words activity was the words were learned and not justmemorized. Many students also commented that the pronunciation section of
the activity assisted in confirming the proper way to pronounce a word. Most
negative comments centred around the pronunciation portion of the activity
being too difficult, or a technical problem with the activity not understanding
their accent. Some students commented that a native speaker pronouncing theword would have been more beneficial that the TTS voice provided. Others
110Student Perceptions of Auto-graded Activities, OCJSI 3, pages 103-121

Figure 1. Reported agreement or disagreement to New Words.

complained the vocabulary was too easy for them. Finally, students complainedof the computer calculating their score prematurely, which required a teacher tointercede and reset or manually change their score.
QuizThis activity was also well received (Figure 2). A total of 87.8% of students agreed
that the quiz assisted in improved understanding of the unit text. Similarly, 88%
found that their listening skills improved using the Quiz activity. Of the 15.6% of
students who disagreed that the activity fit their English level, 10.5% found it too
easy and 5.1% found it too difficult. The technology was considered easy to use
by 83.4% of students, and just over a quarter of students had technical trouble.
Nearly 90% of students recommend it be used again.

Figure 2. Reported agreement or disagreement to Quiz.

111Remmerswaal & Barington

The comments were overwhelmingly positive. From the 385 total
respondents, 309 were positive and 90 were negative. Many felt their listening
skills had improved, and others felt that their experience was like a game. The
few negative comments were related to difficulty in using the drag and drop
functionality on their device and wanting a native speaker, rather than a Japaneseperson, to read the text. A few of the comments were related to students wishingfor a simpler process of correcting their mistakes.
Reading
Students largely reported a positive reaction to this activity, with around 85%
of respondents agreeing they would recommend it be used next year (Figure 3).
Though a little less than half reported technical trouble, 80.4% found the activity
was easy to use. Respondents reported agreement that their pronunciation andreading fluency improved by using this activity, 79.2% and 90.7%, respectively.
Of the students who found the activity not at the proper difficulty level, 4.5% of
total students found the activity too easy and 9.9% found it too difficult.
Of the 401 total written responses, 262 were positive and 161 were negative.
Many of the negative comments related to an apparent unawareness of theone-minute time limit and believing there was a technical issue. The positive
comments tended to focus on the activity increasing their reading speed andgiving feedback that improved their pronunciation.

Figure 3. Reported agreement or disagreement to Reading.

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Pronunciation
This activity only received 65.2% of student agreement to recommending
it the following year. Three quarters of students believed it improved theirpronunciation and was a good fit for their English level. Nearly 20% of students
found the activity too difficult for them and 4.8% found it too easy. Just under
50% found it easy to use and 55% had technical trouble.
Much of the technical trouble alluded to in the Likert scale item refers to thevoice recognition. Students claimed trouble with their microphones, too much
extraneous noise in the background, and that the AI had trouble understanding
them properly. This was the only activity with more negative feedback, 321
responses, than positive, 129 responses. The positive responses centered aroundthe activity revealing where pronunciation mistakes were made and giving themconfidence in their pronunciation ability.
Dictation
Responses to this task were largely positive, with 91.9 % of students reporting
improvement in listening and 88% in writing (Figure 5). Appropriateness of level
had 84.6% agreeing. This left 11% of students finding it too difficult and 4.4%
finding it too easy. 87.3% of students agreed in recommending the activity be
used again.
Of the technical difficulties, many were related to the auto-grading feature
misreading items like punctuation, most likely connected to the different

Figure 4. Reported agreement or disagreement to Pronunciation.

113Remmerswaal & Barington

Figure 5. Reported agreement or disagreement to Dictation.

apostrophes used on English and Japanese keyboards. Some students reported
difficulty hearing as well. One of the largest complaints was related to navigationand the desire to easily proceed to the next empty space (these students seemedunaware of the tab key function). Again, positive comments were the majority
with 267 compared to 127 negative comments. Positive comments centered on
the activity being a good way to practice listening, spelling, and typing.
Department Results
Results by department have been broken down as averages across all five activity
types (Table 1). Any department average that was ten percent higher or lower
than the overall average has been noted in the table.
The different categories break down as follows. Test score shows the averagescore on the English proficiency test given at the beginning of the semester. Thisis a multiple-choice test for listening and reading comprehension. Short names
for the departments were used with full names listed below (Appendix). Learningis the percent of responses that agreed learning occurred averaged across all
activities. Right Level is the percent of responses that agreed the activities were
the proper level for them averaged across all activities. Ease of use is the percent
of responses that agreed activities were easy to use averaged across all activities.
Tech issues is the agreement that technical difficulties occurred averaged acrossall five activities. Recommend is the percentage of students who agreed that theywould recommend an activity taken averaged across all activities.
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Student Perceptions of Auto-graded Activities, OCJSI 3, pages 103-121
Table 1
Average Levels of Agreement, Broken Down by Department
Total
Total
Department Test Score Students Responses Learning

Right
Level

Easy touse

TechissuesRecommend

Pharma

73.9

127

109

90.9

85.5

78.0

44.4

87.2

Aero

60.1

88

60

86.7

68.0

71.0

46.3

76.7

Arch

57.5

72

49

89.5

87.3

81.6

47.8

82.0

LifeSci

56.8

86

60

87.1

73.3

73.7

43.7

81.3

BioTech

55.4

70

50

89.0

68.4

70.4

52.4

82.4

CIS

54.3

144

111

83.6

76.0

69.4

42.9

77.5

Design

52.8

53

33

88.6

70.3

79.4

38.8

88.5

Nano

51.5

56

47

88.0

71.1

78.7

35.3

85.1

MecEng

50.0

69

49

81.1

78.8

66.1

46.9

75.1

Art

45.3

24

15

88.3

68.0

85.3

44.0

90.7

All

57.8

789

583

87.2

82.7

74.2

44.4

81.8

Note: Averages in a department that were 10% higher or lower than the overall average are given
in bold.

The departments of Aero, BioTech, Design, Nano, and Art were all marked
for being lower than the average in the Right Level category. MecEng was theleast likely to find the technology easy to use, while the Art department was themost likely to find it easy. Design was the least likely to agree to having technicalissues, while BioTech was the most likely. Finally, Art was the most likely torecommend the activities be used again, and MecEng the least likely.

Discussion

Determining an appropriate difficulty level of an activity from student perceptions
is challenging, as each teacher or institution is likely to have their own opinion as
to what is an acceptable percentage of students who find the task too easy or too
115Remmerswaal & Barington

difficult. Departments like Pharma with a high proficiency were likely to claim
activities were appropriately levelled, which would suggest no changes needed.
Where some departments, like MecEng, with a lower English proficiency scoreclaimed the activities were too easy.
Of interest to the researchers were the percentage of students who found an
activity too easy compared to the percentage who found it too difficult. Student
responses to both New Words and Quiz had nearly double the percentage ofstudents who found it too easy compared to those who found it too difficult.
Reading and Dictation was the opposite with nearly double the percentage ofstudents finding it too difficult when compared to those who found it too easy.
Pronunciation had nearly 20% of students believing the activity was above theirEnglish level. This was more than four times those who found it too easy. These
differences between easy and difficult may prove useful when considering how toalter activities to better meet the English level of most students.
Determining the overall ease of use of technology is difficult to categorize
as a binary easy or not easy. None of the activities were considered easy to use by
all users, showing an opportunity for improvement. Similarly, as students agreed
that technical problems occurred, there are problems to address. Departments
were also likely to have had differences in technical proficiency, as departmentswith similar English proficiency were dissimilar in their agreement to ease of use.
The New Words activity, with which nearly 60% of students reported
having technical problems, had comments centred on the pronunciation aspect.
Students reported difficulties with the voice recognition software. This may
require more teacher instruction, or clarity with the goals and objectives of theactivity. Similarly, a teacher was required to manually reset scores which likely
lowered agreement with ease of use. If that system error continues, an alternativeplug-in may be preferable.
The Quiz activity had the least number of technical difficulties reported andthe most agreement with ease of use. There could be some improvement to thedrag and drop feature, but with such high agreement to the ease of use, the level
could be deemed acceptable without changes.
Reading was also highly rated as easy to use. However, increased teacher
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explanation of the one-minute limitation and reasoning is recommended. There
was also a server issue during the semester. Despite its resolution, it was likely
considered when students completed surveys.
Pronunciation was considered the least easy to use and had the second
highest agreement to having technical difficulties. Once again, increased teacher
input and explanation could resolve some issues. Some students struggled to use
the Chrome browser despite its requirement. Other browsers functioned for allother activities, but proper functioning of the Pronunciation microphone input
required Chrome. Students possibly assumed their microphone was broken anddid not change their browser. Some students felt the transcription technology
was broken because of the strange transcriptions. While transcriptions were
far from what students attempted to speak, the technology was functioning
properly. To address this, the software developer has made a change to compare
pronunciation to the correct answer, rather than all words in the English
language. This should reduce the issue and lower the difficulty as well. Ideas tomake the level more appropriate include eliminating the translation element andto provide an opportunity to shadow passages before attempting the recording.
Finally, Dictation was also considered easy to use but had a high number oftechnical difficulties at 40%. This activity was highly recommended for futureuse, so these issues should be explored. The only suggestion is to use a different
plug-in to create a similar activity.
Some of the technology problems could have been easily solved withincreased communication between teachers and students. Perhaps conducting
a survey in the first few weeks of the semester would have remedied the minor
technical difficulties and opened the lines of communication between teachersand students.

Conclusion

Overall, including Pronunciation and its associated difficulties, these tools canbe considered successful and with some modification could encourage deeper
learning. It is important to point out that these tools are assistive in nature andcannot be the sole means of feedback or input for students to improve their117Remmerswaal & Barington

English.
In answering the first question, did learning occur from using the autograded activities, most students agreed to these statements. While there weresome complaints and ideas on how to make improvements, learning seems tohave occurred and, in some areas, even more than expected. As seen with students
reporting so positively about learning the words and not just memorizing them.
The second question is a little more difficult to answer. For the majority ofstudents, the activities were perceived as appropriately levelled. Four activities
fall into acceptable levels of perceived ease and difficulty according to the student
feedback, but Pronunciation does not. Pronunciation should be revised to be lessdifficult.
Concerning the third question, there is room to improve technology
usability. Most students reported having technical issues, and most negative
comments were reflective of these problems. The Quiz activity appeared to be
the easiest to use but could still use adjustments. All other activities may require
more detailed explanations, changing of settings, or other considerations tomake improvements. Students were none the less able to complete all activities.

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Author bios

Robert Remmerswaal is a teaching professional in the Kumamoto area. He has
an interest in increasing student confidence in their English ability. His teachingoften includes technology and using real-life situations to keep students engaged.
robertr@m.sojo-u.ac.jp
Rachel Barington is a senior assistant professor at Sojo University where she
currently teaches first-year English Communication courses. Her research interests
include teaching and evaluating speaking, vocabulary acquisition, interculturalcommunication, and CALL. rachelb@m.sojo-u.ac.jp
Received: September 17, 2020
Accepted: November 5, 2021

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Student Perceptions of Auto-graded Activities, OCJSI 3, pages 103-121

Appendix
Faculty

Department

Short Name

Pharmaceutical Sciences

Pharmaceutical Sciences

PharmaEngineering

Aerospace Systems Engineering

Aero

Engineering

Architecture

Arch

Biotechnology and Life Science

Applied Life Science

Life

Biotechnology and Life Science

Applied Microbial Technology

BioTechComputer and Information Sciences Computer and Information Sciences CIS
Art

DesignDesignEngineering

Nanoscience

Nano

Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

MecEngArt

Fine Arts

Art

Note: Data from www.sojo-u.ac.jp/en/faculty/

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