Electronic grading is currently used by the nation's largest standardized testing service, ETS (Educational Testing Service), to grade minimum skills tests with a 97% accuracy rate when compared to live graders. Computers also score nearly one million graduate management admissions tests per year.

Electronic grading has proven to be beneficial to students who make a good faith effort to improve their writing skills instead of trying to beat the formula. One of the advantages of electronic grading is that it encourages student proofreading and provides unlimited opportunities for self-remediation. Students are pushed to elaborate written responses, as lack of elaboration is the number one reason students fail to master the TAKS Language Arts Exam or other high school exit level exams.

Many students complain that teacher bias shows in the grading of their papers and essays; when grading practice tests electronically, grading becomes completely objective, eliminating the possibility of reader bias. Students feel electronic grading is fairer and more consistent -- they also have no one to blame (except themselves) when scores are not what they may have hoped.

Assigning electronically graded essays as an instructional alternative counteracts the tendency for teachers to stop giving written essays because of grading overload. The Triplet Ticket "Save" option allows students opportunities for self-remediation rather than waiting for teachers to grade handwritten essays and find student errors. Feedback is nearly immediate, rather than the usual three-day to two-week turnaround it normally takes a teacher to grade 5-7 classes of essays. Students with scores of "Insufficient" are sent back to improve their own writing; thus, the responsibility for language skills improvement is put back on the student, where it belongs!

Students using the Triplet Ticket also have the option to complete a written assignment at home for homework from their PC. This option can be quite meaningful when the homework routine becomes more rote drudgery than a chance for quality learning. Grading electronically forces students to be more accountable for spelling errors, length of responses, punctuation, elaboration, addressing content, and the overall level of English literacy required to meet the minimum standards set by the TAKS or other state high school exit level exams. The same methodology works well for second langauge learners and those preparing for GED and adult education courses.

Teachers still take an active role in grading to help students understand why scores returned "Sufficient" or "Insufficient" responses. Therefore, the teacher is not removed from English learning but maintains the role of an active and necessary mentor in all writing instruction. Many junior high or middle school and high school districts have been working with electronic grading and have demonstrated gains or increases in standardized testing scores as a result.

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Featured in the Corpus Christi Caller Times, the Triplet Ticket   Software Program Grades Essays and Multiple Choice!

• Click here for more information on scoring rubrics for the TAKS compositions

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