PEER AND AUTOMATED WRITING EVALUATION (AWE): INDONESIAN EFL COLLEGE STUDENTS’ PREFERENCE FOR ESSAY EVALUATION

Abstract

Numerous studies have investigated the effects of peer evaluation (PE) and computerized writing evaluation (AWE) on the writing products and attitudes of English as a foreign language (EFL) students. However, few studies have compared student preferences regarding its application to essay evaluation. This research aimed to determine which method EFL college students prefer for assessing the quality of their academic writing in English. Students' utilization of feedback was determined through the distribution of a questionnaire. Twenty English Education students responded to the questionnaire. The open-ended interview was then administered to three students in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their perspectives on these two evaluation methods. For data analysis, frequency count and thematic analysis were employed. Students prefer peer feedback over Grammarly, the AWE software used in this study, for two reasons, according to the results. First, they consider their peers to be their true audience, and second, they place a higher value on their peers' feedback than Grammarly's. However, Grammarly also received high marks because students enjoyed using it to write. Consequently, it is believed that combining these two strategies will result in the most essay writing progress.