As artificial intelligence reshapes the way we write and think, a central question emerges: Is AI helping or hindering our ability to engage in independent, critical thought? Joshua Wilson, professor of education at the University of Delaware, investigates this topic in a new paper that examines the risks of AI dependency and discusses the need for AI literacy in education.
Wilson explores how AI impacts cognitive development through writing — highlighting both the promise and peril of AI-powered tools like ChatGPT. His expertise centers on how these tools interact with foundational models of writing and learning and what that means for education, workforce readiness and civic engagement.
In his new paper, Wilson warns that while AI can support higher-order thinking by automating basic writing mechanics, it also risks eroding critical thinking if students and professionals come to rely on it uncritically. He is a leading advocate for AI literacy in education – training individuals not just to use AI, but to think with it.
Wilson is available for interviews with reporters, particularly those covering the intersection of AI, education and society and investigating the risks of cognitive offloading in an AI-saturated world.
To reach Wilson directly, visit his profile and click on the contact button.
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A major topic buzzing around educational circles right now is the use of AI in academic writing. With AI tools becoming more sophisticated, students and educators find themselves navigating a new academic landscape. It’s both exciting and daunting. Joshua Wilson, an associate professor of education at the University of Delaware, can discuss this landscape.
Drawing on his research in automated writing evaluation (AWE), Wilson explores how AI tools – particularly generative AI – can transform the teaching and learning of writing by supporting critical thinking and knowledge transformation.
He emphasizes that AI can help writers overcome lower-level constraints, such as grammar and organization, enabling deeper reflection and metacognitive engagement. Additionally, AI tools hold promise for helping students structure their thoughts and ideas, serving as valuable aids in organizing ideas before they begin writing. Thus, making writing more accessible and less intimidating for learners at all levels.
However, he cautions that the value of AI depends on its thoughtful integration into educational practices, alignment with learning theories, and addressing challenges such as equity, feedback accuracy, and ethical use.
He provides actionable insights for educators, researchers, and policymakers on how AI can enhance writing instruction, critical thinking and accessibility while avoiding potential pitfalls.
Wilson has appeared in publications including The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun and The Philadelphia Inquirer. To speak with Wilson further about AI and writing, click on his profile.
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The College of Education and Human Development in the University of Delaware has a number of stories and experts for the upcoming school year.
Stories Bridging the language gap: How AWE software fosters inclusivity for English Language Learners and Non-English Language Learners alike Creating a mindful classroom: Tips for teachers on how to have a peaceful transition into the 2024-2025 school year Empowering Black and Latinx Boys in Their Postsecondary Journeys: The Role of School Communities UD assistant professor Eric Layland shares new research on LGBTQ+ developmental milestones and supporting LGBTQ+ youth University of Delaware assistant professor explores the tensions between hopes and expectations in vocational planning for autistic young adults Experts Allison Karpyn – an associate professor who can speak to topics related to hunger, obesity, school food, supermarket access, and food insecurity. She has spoken extensively about food in schools and can offer context to those subjects.
Roderick Carey – an assistant professor whose current interdisciplinary research serves to make sense of the school experiences of black and Latino adolescent boys and young men in urban contexts. He can also talk about teacher education as it relates to men in the field/the impact of male teachers.
To contact Karpyn or Carey, click their profiles.
More experts... If you would like to pursue any of these stories or speak to any of the following experts, they are all willing and excited to chat. Contact mediarelations@udel.edu to speak to them.
Eric Layland – an assistant professor who can speak about LGBTQ+ student experiences from a research perspective. His work bridges LGBTQ+ developmental research to community impact through developmentally-informed, affirmative interventions.
Sarah Mallory – an assistant professor who specializes in special education with a special focus on autism and other intellectual and developmental disabilities. She also works within the Center for Disabilities Studies.
Sarah Curtiss – an assistant professor who specializes in special education with a special focus on autistic youth.
Brittany Zakszeski – an assistant professor and nationally certified school psychologist, licensed psychologist and behavior analyst. She focuses on student and teacher mental health and can comment on what concealed weapons carried by teachers can do for the mental wellbeing of both students and teachers.
Lauren Bailes – an associate professor who focuses on the ways in which organizational, social-cognitive, and leadership theory unite to promote the success of school leaders and K-12 students.
Bryan VanGronigen – an assistant professor who specializes in organizational resilience and change management in K-12 schools with specific interest areas in efforts to improve schools, the preparation and professional development of educational leaders and educational policy analyses.
Lynsey Gibbons – an associate professor specializing in mathematics education, in teacher professional learning and school partnerships across content areas.
Contact mediarelations@udel.edu to speak to these experts or for more information on the stories above.
Media
Biography
Dr. Joshua Wilson is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. His research broadly focuses on ways to improve the teaching, learning, and assessment of writing and specifically focuses on ways that automated writing evaluation systems can facilitate those improvements. His research has been supported by grants from federal, foundation, and industry sponsors and has been published in journals such as Computers & Education, Journal of Educational Computing Research, Journal of Educational Psychology, and Journal of School Psychology among others. Dr. Wilson has or currently sits on the editorial boards of such top journals as Assessing Writing, Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal of Educational Psychology, and Journal of Learning Disabilities.
He also helps coordinate the M.Ed. in Exceptional Child and Youth program and teaches courses on elementary special education methods.
Prior to earning his Ph.D., Dr. Wilson was a special education teacher for six years.
Industry Expertise
Education/Learning
Areas of Expertise
Writing Instruction
Writing Assessment
Automated Scoring
Automated Feedback
Artificial Intelligence in Education
Educational Psychology
Learning Disabilities
Special Education
Media Appearances
Education professor studies how to use artificial intelligence effectively in the classroom
NBC10 tv
2023-08-24
Wilson spoke about best practices for utilizing A.I. in education.
I’ve been watching with interest as recent advances in artificial intelligence have reached fairly astounding stages. For most of our lives, AI was something limited to science fiction depictions like HAL 9000 in “2001: A Space Odyssey” or Skynet in “The Terminator.” All of that changed in November, when the California tech company OpenAI released
Writing without thinking? There’s a place for ChatGPT — if used properly | GUEST COMMENTARY
The Baltimore Sun online
2023-02-03
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s fast-growing language model that can write everything from essays to poems and even computer code, is roiling classrooms from middle school to graduate school, leading school districts across the country — including in Seattle, Los Angeles and New York City — to ban its use. But should they?
ChatGPT is a wake-up call to revamp how we teach writing | Opinion
Philadelphia Inquirer online
2023-02-02
Writing instruction should empower students to think critically, be creative, and have a personal connection to the writing process and what they’re learning. If we do this, ChatGPT is no threat.
ChatbotGPT worries teachers who seek to detect cheating by AI
The Washington Post online
2022-12-28
The stakes are high. Many teachers agree that learning to write can take place only as students grapple with ideas and put them into sentences. Students start out not knowing what they want to say, and as they write, they figure it out. “The process of writing transforms our knowledge,” said Joshua Wilson, an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. “That will completely get lost if all you’re doing is jumping to the end product.”
Writing test added to Philly’s selective admissions process is being misused, professor says
Philadelphia Inquirier online
2021-12-09
Joshua Wilson, an associate professor at the University of Delaware who studies automated essay scoring, said the writing tool is meant to identify struggling learners and inform classroom instruction, not make high-stakes decisions about students’ futures. “No one has done research on whether it can be used to make placement decisions,” Wilson said about the writing tool, MI Write, which is a product made by Measurement Inc., based in Durham, N.C. Using it this way is a “mistake,” he said.
Listen: Automation in Education Technology with Joshua Wilson, PhD
MarketScale online
2018-01-19
On today’s episode of the Podcast, we get to chat with Joshua Wilson, PhD., from the University of Delaware. We discuss the emergence of software that can assess a student’s writing ability (with an eye towards helping them where they struggle). We also talk about the change in educational approaches, the developing role of technology in the classroom, and how automation can make a huge impact on the world of scoring and grading in schools.
How U of Michigan Built Automated Essay-Scoring Software to Fill ‘Feedback Gap’ for Student Writing
EdSurge online
2017-06-06
The university’s launch of ATA is part of a growing nationwide trend in both K-12 and higher education classrooms, according to Joshua Wilson, assistant professor of education at the University of Delaware. Wilson researches the application of automated essay scoring. “I project the fastest adoption in the K-12 arena, and pretty quick adoption at community colleges, where it is helpful for remedial English courses,” Wilson says.
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Educational Measurement: Opportunities and Ethical Challenges
Chinese/English Journal of Educational Measurement and Evaluation
2024
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in educational measurement has transformed assessment methods, allowing for automated scoring, swift content analysis, and personalized feedback through machine learning and natural language processing. These advancements provide valuable insights into student performance while also enhancing the overall assessment experience. However, the implementation of AI in education also raises significant ethical concerns regarding validity, reliability, transparency, fairness, and equity. Issues such as algorithmic bias and the opacity of AI decision-making processes risk perpetuating inequalities and affecting assessment outcomes. In response, various stakeholders, including educators, policymakers, and testing organizations, have developed guidelines to ensure the ethical use of AI in education. The National Council of Measurement in Education’s Special Interest Group on AI in Measurement and Education (AIME) is dedicated to establishing ethical standards and advancing research in this area. In this paper, a diverse group of AIME members examines the ethical implications of AI-powered tools in educational measurement, explores significant challenges such as automation bias and environmental impact, and proposes solutions to ensure AI’s responsible and effective use in education.
Exploring the Long-Term Effects of the Statewide Implementation of an Automated Writing Evaluation System on Students’ State Test ELA Performance
International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education
2024
Automated writing evaluation (AWE) is an artificial intelligence (AI)-empowered educational technology designed to assist writing instruction and improve students’ writing proficiency. The present study adopted a quasi-experimental design using the inverse probability of treatment weighting method to explore the long-term effects of an AWE system known as Utah Compose on students’ state test English Language Arts (ELA) performance. The participants included 134,425 students in Grades 4–10 in Utah from school year 2015 to 2018. Findings showed AWE’s cumulative benefit to students’ ELA performance, but those cumulative effects decreased each year and peaked after three years of implementation. This study is the largest evaluation of AWE effects to date in terms of both its sample size and the duration of investigation. The findings regarding AWE’s cumulative effects on students’ state test ELA performance, which is a distal outcome at the state level, have significant implications for policy and practice regarding large-scale AWE implementation.
Writing Motivation and Ability Profiles and Transition During a Technology-Based Writing Intervention
Frontiers in Psychology
2023
We identified writing motivation and ability profiles and transition paths of 2,487 U.S. middle-school students participating in an automated writing evaluation (AWE) intervention using MI Write. Four motivation and ability profiles emerged from a latent transition analysis with self-reported writing self-efficacy, attitudes toward writing, and writing ability measures: Low, Low/Mid, Mid/High, and High. Most students started the school year in the Low/Mid (38%) and Mid/High (30%) profiles. Only 11% of students started the school year in the High profile. Between 50 and 70% of students maintained the same profile in the Spring. Approximately 30% of students were likely to move one profile higher in the Spring.
Examining Human and Automated Ratings of Elementary Students’ Writing Quality: A Multivariate Generalizability Theory Application
American Educational Research Journal
2022
We used multivariate generalizability theory to examine the reliability of hand-scoring and automated essay scoring (AES) and to identify how these scoring methods could be used in conjunction to optimize writing assessment. Students (n = 113) included subsamples of struggling writers and non-struggling writers in Grades 3–5 drawn from a larger study. Students wrote six essays across three genres. All essays were hand-scored by four raters and an AES system called Project Essay Grade (PEG). Both scoring methods were highly reliable, but PEG was more reliable for non-struggling students, while hand-scoring was more reliable for struggling students.
Upper-Elementary Students’ Metacognitive Knowledge about Writing and Its Relationship to Writing Outcomes across Genres
The Elementary School Journal
2022
This study investigated fourth and fifth graders’ metacognitive knowledge about writing and its relationship to writing performance to help identify areas that might be leveraged when designing effective writing instruction. Students’ metacognitive knowledge was probed using a 30-minute informative writing prompt requiring students to teach their reader how to be a good writer (i.e., a metawriting task). The metawriting task was coded for eight dimensions of metacognitive knowledge. Students’ writing performance was assessed via additional 30-minute prompts—two narrative, one informative, two persuasive—and evaluated for quality and length using automated essay scoring.
Integrating goal-setting and automated feedback to improve writing outcomes: a pilot study
Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching
2022
Purpose This study presents results from a pilot intervention that integrated self-regulation through reflection and goal setting with automated writing evaluation (AWE) technology to improve students’ writing outcomes. Methods We employed a single-group pretest-posttest design. All students in Grades 5–8 (N = 56) from one urban, all female, public-charter middle school completed pretest and posttest measures of writing beliefs and writing performance. In between pretest and posttest, students completed monthly goal-setting activities via a Qualtrics survey and monthly persuasive writing practice via prompts completed within an AWE system.
Investigating the promise of automated writing evaluation for supporting formative writing assessment at scale
Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice
2022
We investigated the promise of a novel approach to formative writing assessment at scale that involved an automated writing evaluation (AWE) system called MI Write. Specifically, we investigated elementary teachers’ perceptions and implementation of MI Write and changes in students’ writing performance in three genres from Fall to Spring associated with this implementation. Teachers in Grades 3–5 (n = 14) reported that MI Write was usable and acceptable, useful, and desirable; however, teachers tended to implement MI Write in a limited manner. Multilevel repeated measures analyses indicated that students in Grades 3–5 (n = 570) tended not to increase their performance from Fall to Spring except for third graders in all genres and fourth graders’ narrative writing.
