7 in 10 teachers oppose CSAT essay questions over grading disputes, AI concerns

A parent demands full marks for a written English answer, citing an email from a professor at an American university. In another case, a private academy challenged an English test score, and the dispute later led to a lawsuit over partial credit.

These incidents, described in a casebook recently released by the National Secondary School Teachers’ Union, show the challenges facing discussions about introducing written-response and essay questions into Korea’s College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), potentially aided by artificial intelligence (AI) grading. The casebook accompanied a survey of 2,427 middle and high school teachers conducted from Sept. 7-30.

Middle and high school teachers nationwide say persistent grading complaints have pushed them to set questions with fixed answers. They warn that expanding essay-based assessments could worsen disputes and increase their workload.

Several teachers described a tension between encouraging diverse, well-reasoned answers and creating grading criteria precise enough to withstand complaints.

One English teacher reported that a dispute involving a student and parents escalated to a formal complaint through the government’s online petition system.

“Students and parents who had lived abroad drew on considerable expertise, citing relevant academic papers and other supporting materials to aggressively challenge the teacher. The dispute escalated to a complaint through the government’s online petition system. Teachers, in response, began drafting easy, unambiguous questions (to protect themselves),” said one teacher in the report.

A high school social studies teacher described a similar dilemma when students demanded credit for brief, incomplete answers on the grounds that they were not technically incorrect. Accepting those answers would be unfair to students who had written fuller responses, the teacher said, but the disputes encouraged questions more akin to short-answer tests.

The accounts illustrate why assessment reform involves more than just designing questions: Schools must also set up robust institutional procedures to handle grading disputes, rather than stranding individual teachers on the front lines of prolonged confrontation.

Some survey respondents said grading disagreements even brought private tutoring instructors and outside specialists into school assessments. A middle school mathematics teacher reported a private academy using the slogan, “We’ll recover your lost marks.”

AI, which is rapidly reshaping education, has added another complication. While some teachers use it to help assess answers, students are increasingly using it to challenge their grades.

“A student challenged the grade, insisting that their answer was correct because AI agreed with it and that I was therefore wrong. Even after I repeatedly explained the reasoning and provided evidence, the student continued to cite AI and told me to ask it myself,” a middle school teacher said.

Teachers who had tried AI grading also questioned whether it saved time. A middle school Korean-language teacher said a system handled general writing topics reasonably well but struggled with answers containing subject-specific concepts. Setting up grading criteria and checking the results created additional work, some teachers said in the report.

Asked why essay-style assessments struggle to serve their intended purpose, 38.5 percent of respondents cited the burden of handling objections and complaints, while 35.6 percent pointed to difficulties ensuring objective and consistent grading. Another 16.9 percent cited insufficient time to grade large numbers of answers. Respondents could select up to two reasons.

Asked about introducing written response and essay questions into the CSAT, 73.5 percent of respondents were opposed. Another 16.7 percent said they should be introduced only after sufficient preparation, while 6.5 percent favored limiting them to selected subjects. Just 1.8 percent supported introduction outright and 1.5 percent were unsure.

At a parliamentary audit held Oct. 7, National Education Commission Chairman Cha Jeong-in said its members were discussing whether to delay the draft proposal, originally scheduled for release later this month, to allow more preparation. The original plan was to release the draft this month and finalize it next March.

Asked how the commission would ensure objective grading, an official told The Korea Times, “We are continuing public deliberations as we consider ways to address those issues.” The official added that introducing written-response to the test was still under review.