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This paper reports a series of research studies on the use of automated writing evaluation (awe) in secondary and university settings in China. The secondary school study featured the use of awe in six intact classes of 268 senior high school students for one academic year. The university study group comprised 460 students from five universities across the country. The teaching experiment included the introduction of an awe tool, Writing Roadmap, to the English as a Foreign Language classroom and offering support to the teachers. A mixed-methods approach in the form of quasiexperimental research design, questionnaires, interviews and journals were undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of the teaching experiment. In this paper, we summarize the results of these studies in relationship to implementation, teacher and student attitudes, effects on writing and revision processes, and impact on writing test score outcomes. We also discuss the key factors affecting the successful integration of this technology in the classroom.

Few now doubt that successfully managing environmental challenges will be central to public policy in the coming century. Unless the international community can cope with transnational problems such as global warming, destruction of species and tropical rain-forests, depletion of oceanic fish stocks, and increasing water scarcity in arid regions, both domestic and international conflicts may easily arise. The problems of international environmental political economy pose increasingly pressing issues for analysts, policy makers, and citizens.Such concerns helped to motivate the project, “The Political Economy of International Environmental Cooperation,” sponsored by the Institute on Global Cooperation and Conflict and generously funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur foundation. The project supported University of California graduate students writing their Ph.D. dissertations on issues of international environmental cooperation. On concluding their dissertation research, the doctoral candidates presented policy papers at a workshop held in Santa Cruz, California. The student-organized workshop brought together these promising young scholars and policy analysts with various senior members of both the academic and international policy community. A key intellectual theme of the project was the (always difficult, always necessary) marriage of theory and policy. However varied the details of international environmental political economy may be, the core problem is always the same: how to induce self-interested, often myopic, decision makers to “do the right thing,” or to behave in ways that minimize environmental damage and/or optimize the utilization of natural resources in the presence of external constraints. Addressing such problems is difficult enough within a polity; forging the transnational cooperation needed to cope with environmental issues confronts still greater obstacles.The papers in this policy paper offer an Aristotelian line-up of earth, fire, air, and water issues. The problems of optimal depletion of forests (Bobenrieth), managing global emissions and related global warming problems (Rich), water negotiations in two different regional settings (Carlisle and Williams), and issues of oceanic fisheries (Potter) all receive close, detailed attention. The volume concludes with an evaluation of their work from the perspective of a World Bank professional on the policy-making process. The result shows how the interaction of theory and empirical material can generate results helpful to policy makers. We hope that such close work between theoretically grounded, empirically rich policy analysts and professional decision-makers will become increasingly frequent in the years ahead.

This paper reports a series of research studies on the use of automated writing evaluation (AWE) in secondary and university settings in China. The secondary school study featured the use of AWE in six intact classes of 268 senior high school students for one academic year. The university study group comprised 460 students from five universities across the country. The teaching experiment included the introduction of an AWE tool, Writing Roadmap, to the English as a Foreign Language classroom and offering support to the teachers. A mixed-methods approach in the form of quasiexperimental research design, questionnaires, interviews and journals were undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of the teaching experiment. In this paper, we summarize the results of these studies in relationship to implementation, teacher and student attitudes, effects on writing and revision processes, and impact on writing test score outcomes. We also discuss the key factors affecting the successful integration of this technology in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study of the application of automated writing evaluation (AWE) technology in English language classrooms in Dalian, China. It is stated that AWE is a technology tool for assisting teachers and students, but it cannot replace teachers' knowledge and the important role played by them in English language education. In the study, teachers found that using AWE in their classrooms provided students with an improved practice of English writing.