Refining English Writing Proficiency Assessment and Placement in Developmental Education Using NLP Tools and Machine Learning

Miguel Da Corte, Miguel Da Corte, Jorge Baptista, Jorge Baptista

2025

Abstract

This study investigates the enhancement of English writing proficiency assessment and placement for Developmental Education (DevEd) within U.S. colleges using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML). Existing automated placement tools, such as ACCUPLACER, often lack transparency and struggle to identify nuanced linguistic features necessary for accurate skill-level classification. By integrating human-annotated linguistic features, this study aims to contribute to equitable and transparent placement systems that better address students’ academic needs, reducing misplacements and their associated costs. For this study, a 300-essay corpus was compiled and manually annotated with a refined set of 11 DevEd-specific (DES) features, alongside 328 linguistic features automatically extracted from CTAP and 106 via COH-METRIX. Supervised ML algorithms were used to compare ACCUPLACER-generated classifications with human ratings, assessing classification accuracy and identifying predictive features. This analysis revealed gaps in ACCUPLACER’s classification capabilities. Experimental results showed that models incorporating DES features improved classification accuracy, with Naïve Bayes (NB) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) achieving scores up to 80%. The refined features presented and methodology offer actionable insights for faculty and institutions, potentially contributing to more effective DevEd course placements and targeted instructional interventions.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Da Corte M. and Baptista J. (2025). Refining English Writing Proficiency Assessment and Placement in Developmental Education Using NLP Tools and Machine Learning. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 2: CSEDU; ISBN 978-989-758-746-7, SciTePress, pages 288-303. DOI: 10.5220/0013351500003932

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu25,
author={Miguel Da Corte and Jorge Baptista},
title={Refining English Writing Proficiency Assessment and Placement in Developmental Education Using NLP Tools and Machine Learning},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 2: CSEDU},
year={2025},
pages={288-303},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013351500003932},
isbn={978-989-758-746-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 2: CSEDU
TI - Refining English Writing Proficiency Assessment and Placement in Developmental Education Using NLP Tools and Machine Learning
SN - 978-989-758-746-7
AU - Da Corte M.
AU - Baptista J.
PY - 2025
SP - 288
EP - 303
DO - 10.5220/0013351500003932
PB - SciTePress