The Qualifications Authority is trialling computer-marking of its online NCEA writing exams.
The organisation already used auto-marking for multi-choice online reading tests that recently became a critical part of NCEA literacy and numeracy requirements known as co-requisites.
NZQA deputy chief executive Jann Marshall said it was now testing whether the same technology would work well for the writing tests.
She said the literacy and numeracy tests were held twice a year and in the most recent round in September, students completed more than 152,200 assessments, which were being marked by a contracted workforce of 186 markers.
Students and teachers wanted the results as quickly as possible, and auto-marking could help speed up the process, she said.
Marshall said automated marking had been used for the multi-choice reading assessments since they were being piloted.
"Following the May 2024 assessment event, this allowed us to return results for reading to students and schools several days earlier than results for other standards," she said.
"Following a small-scale trial of automated text scoring trial on writing assessment responses from the May assessment event, we are conducting a large-scale trial using 35,000 writing assessment responses from September.
"Automated text scoring uses machine learning to recognise the characteristics of a piece of text to mark other similar responses."
Marshall said the trials allowed NZQA to compare the results from auto text scoring with scores provided by its regular markers.
"This shows whether automated text scoring would be suitably reliable and accurate," she said.
"If the trial is successful, we plan to use automated text scoring in the writing assessments from May 2025, which will contribute to reducing the turnaround time."
Marshall said automated text scoring would be quality assured for consistency and accuracy using NZQA's existing check-marking process, where samples of students' assessments were reviewed by experienced human markers.
