Teachers’ Expectation and Acceptance of a Home-grown Networked Automated Essay Scorer with Feedback (AESF) for the Malaysian University English Test (MUET) Classroom

When introducing any system into the classroom, teachers’ acceptance and expectation are the prerequisite for its success because teachers are the ones who implement the system. They are the driving forces that ensure the system takes place, works and serves its purposes. This study aimed at determining teachers’ acceptance and expectation on the introduction of an automated networked-based essay scorer that provides immediate feedback in terms of score and remarks called the Automated Essay Scoring Feedback (AESF). A total of eight experienced MUET teachers were selected to be interviewed. The qualitative findings were analysed, coded and trended. One of the findings indicates that essay writing is the most underdeveloped skills because it is demanding on the students and even worst for teachers who guide, assess, respond and document their student’s writing. The proposal of a home-grown and networked AESF was positively accepted by the teachers despite some were sceptical about the reliability and other technical issues. Some practical considerations derived contribute towards the design and development of AESF, include the need for immediacy, ease of use, usefulness, reliability and validity. Being home-grown, AESF can overcome a fundamental drawback of commercially available Automated Essay Scorer (AES), namely cultural-sensitivity and validity.