HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Digital Education
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Role of AI in Transforming Literacy: Insights into Reading and Writing ProcessesView all 8 articles
Revising with AI: Aligning Feedback Technologies with Learners' Revision Processes
Provisionally accepted
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany
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Revising a text is an essential part of the writing process, and cultivating revision skills is crucial for developing advanced writing abilities. Although AI-generated feedback offers personalized and prompt support for revision, empirical studies suggest that many learners do not engage in revision after receiv-ing it. This article addresses this issue by shifting the analytical focus from the quality of the feedback to the requirements of the revision process itself. Drawing on process-oriented writing research, the paper conceptualizes text revision as a sequence of interrelated sub-processes, deriving the specific cognitive, motivational and strategic demands that learners face when revising their own texts. Against this theoretical background, two AI-based feedback tools, Khan Academy Writing Coach and FelloFish, are analyzed to determine the extent to which their feedback practices align with these requirements. The analysis reveals three central tensions: (1) the timing of AI feedback versus learners' need for critical distance from their own texts; (2) the risk of diminished learner agency and motivation when core revision processes are outsourced to AI; and (3) insufficient embedding of revision within meaningful writing tasks and communicative goals. The article argues that, without explicit alignment with revision processes, AI-based feedback may inadvertently hinder rather than support learners' engagement with revision. Implications for the design of AI feedback tools, writing instruction and future empirical research are discussed.
Keywords: AI feedback, FelloFish, Revision, Writing coach, writing process
Received: 09 Sep 2025; Accepted: 09 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Helm and Hesse. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Gerrit Helm
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