An Exploration of Chinese College Students’ Attitudes toward ChatGPT’s Automated Written Corrective Feedback on English Essays

Abstract

This pilot study was conducted at a vocational college in Fuzhou, China, during the spring 2024 semester, to explore Chinese college students’ attitudes toward ChatGPT’s AWCF on a sample English essay. Twenty-seven college students majoring in Software Technology participated in the study and completed a survey via the WeChat survey app. SPSS and R Programming Language were used to analyze collected data. Survey results indicated that the participants generally have a positive view of ChatGPT’s feedback. While not all the participants believed ChatGPT identified more errors than they did, most of them acknowledged its effectiveness in correcting errors in the sample essay. It is worth noting that no significant differences in attitudes were found between the participants with and without ChatGPT experience, indicating that previous access to ChatGPT has not influenced their attitudes toward it. Interestingly, despite the overall positive attitudes toward ChatGPT, students varied significantly in their willingness to use it for learning English in the future. Overall, this study has implications for English teachers, especially college English teachers in China, to improve their English writing instruction.