This study examines whether asking students to critique incorrect solutions to decimal problems b... more This study examines whether asking students to critique incorrect solutions to decimal problems based on common misconceptions can help them learn about decimals better than asking them to solve the same problems and receive feedback. In a web-based tutoring system, 208 middle school students either had to identify, explain, and correct errors made by a fictional student (erroneous examples group) or solve isomorphic versions of the problems with feedback (problem-solving group). Although the two groups did not differ significantly on an immediate posttest, students in the erroneous examples group performed significantly better on a delayed posttest administered one week later (d = .62). Students in the erroneous examples group also were more accurate at judging whether their posttest answers were correct (d = .49). Students in the problem-solving group reported higher satisfaction with the materials than those in the erroneous examples group, indicating that liking instructional materials does not equate to learning from them. Overall, practice in identifying, explaining, and correcting errors may help students process decimal problems at a deeper level, and thereby help them overcome misconceptions and build a lasting understanding of decimals.
International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 2015
Erroneous examplesstep-by-step problem solutions with one or more errors for students to find and... more Erroneous examplesstep-by-step problem solutions with one or more errors for students to find and fixhold great potential to help students learn. In this study, which is a replication of a prior study (Adams et al. 2014), but with a much larger population (390 vs. 208), middle school students learned about decimals either by working with interactive, web-based erroneous examples or with more traditional supported problems to solve. The erroneous examples group was interactively prompted to find, explain, and fix errors in decimal problems, while the problemsolving group was prompted to solve the same decimal problems and explain their solutions. Both groups were given correctness feedback on their work by the webbased program. Although the two groups did not differ on an immediate post-test, the erroneous examples group performed significantly better on a delayed test, given a week after the initial post-test (d=.33, for gain scores), replicating the pattern of the prior study. Interestingly, the problem solving group reported liking the intervention more than the erroneous examples group (d=.21 for liking rating in a questionnaire) and found the user interface easier to interact with (d=.37), suggesting that what students like does not always lead to the best learning outcomes. This result is consistent with that of desirable difficulty studies, in which a more cognitively challenging learning task results in deeper and longer-lasting learning.
International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 2017
Excitement about learning from computer-based games has been papable in recent years and has led ... more Excitement about learning from computer-based games has been papable in recent years and has led to the development of many educational games. However, there are relatively few sound empirical studes in the scientific literature that have shown the benefits of learning mathematics from games as opposed to more traditional approaches. The empirical study reported in this paper provides evidence that a mathematics educational game can provide superior learning opportunities, as well as be more engaging. In a study involving 153 students from two middle schools, 70 students learned about decimals from playing an educational game—Decimal Point—whereas 83 students learned the same content by a more conventional, computer-based approach. The game led to significantly better gain scores in solving decimal problems, on both an immediate (d = .43) and delayed (d = .37) posttest and was rated as significantly more enjoyable (d = .95). Low prior knowledge students especially benefitted from th...
Erroneous examples are an instructional technique that hold promise to help children learn. In th... more Erroneous examples are an instructional technique that hold promise to help children learn. In the study reported in this paper, sixth and seventh grade math students were presented with erroneous examples of decimal problems and were asked to explain and correct those examples. The problems were presented as interactive exercises on the Internet, with feedback provided on correctness of the student explanations and corrections. A second (control) group of students were given problems to solve, also with feedback on correctness. With over 100 students per condition, an erroneous example effect was found: students who worked with the interactive erroneous examples did significantly better than the problem solving students on a delayed posttest. While this finding is highly encouraging, our ultimate research question is this: how can erroneous examples be adaptively presented to students, targeted at their most deeply held misconceptions, to best leverage their effectiveness? This paper discusses how the results of the present study will lead us to an adaptive version of the erroneous examples material.
Human teaching strategies are usually inferred from transcripts of face-to-face conversations or ... more Human teaching strategies are usually inferred from transcripts of face-to-face conversations or computer-mediated dialogs between learner and tutor. However, during natural interactions there are no constraints on the human tutor's behavior and thus tutorial strategies are difficult to analyze and reproduce in a computational model. To overcome this problem, we have realized a Wizard of Oz interface, which by constraining the tutor's interaction makes explicit his decisions about why, how, and when to assist the student in a computer-based learning environment. These decisions automatically generate natural language utterances of different types according to two "politeness" strategies. We have successfully used the interface to model tutorial strategies.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2008
For over a decade, researchers have been investigating the potential of pedagogical agents to pro... more For over a decade, researchers have been investigating the potential of pedagogical agents to promote learning. Most of the research in this area has focused on addressing students' cognitive needs at the expense of affective needs. Intelligent tutoring systems designed following this philosophy have been very effective compared to traditional methods of tutoring (Ritter, Anderson, Koedinger, &
International Journal of Human-computer Studies / International Journal of Man-machine Studies, 2011
College students learned to solve chemistry stoichiometry problems with a web-based intelligent t... more College students learned to solve chemistry stoichiometry problems with a web-based intelligent tutor that provided hints and feedback, using either polite or direct language. There was a pattern in which students with low prior knowledge of chemistry performed better on subsequent problem-solving tests if they learned from the polite tutor rather than the direct tutor (d=.78 on an immediate test,
Excitement about learning from computer-based games has been palpable in recent years and has led... more Excitement about learning from computer-based games has been palpable in recent years and has led to the development of many educational games. However, there are relatively few sound empirical studies in the scientific literature that have shown the benefits of learning mathematics from games as opposed to more traditional approaches. The empirical study reported in this paper provides evidence that a mathematics educational game can provide superior learning opportunities, as well as be more engaging. In a study involving 153 students from two middle schools, 70 students learned about decimals from playing an educational game—Decimal Point—whereas 83 students learned the same content by a more conventional, computer-based approach. The game led to significantly better gain scores in solving decimal problems, on both an immediate (d = .43) and delayed (d = .37) posttest and was rated as significantly more enjoyable (d = .95). Low prior knowledge students especially benefitted from the game. This paper also summarizes the game's design characteristics.
This study examines whether asking students to critique incorrect solutions to decimal problems b... more This study examines whether asking students to critique incorrect solutions to decimal problems based on common misconceptions can help them learn about decimals better than asking them to solve the same problems and receive feedback. In a web-based tutoring system, 208 middle school students either had to identify, explain, and correct errors made by a fictional student (erroneous examples group) or solve isomorphic versions of the problems with feedback (problem-solving group). Although the two groups did not differ significantly on an immediate posttest, students in the erroneous examples group performed significantly better on a delayed posttest administered one week later (d = .62). Students in the erroneous examples group also were more accurate at judging whether their posttest answers were correct (d = .49). Students in the problem-solving group reported higher satisfaction with the materials than those in the erroneous examples group, indicating that liking instructional materials does not equate to learning from them. Overall, practice in identifying, explaining, and correcting errors may help students process decimal problems at a deeper level, and thereby help them overcome misconceptions and build a lasting understanding of decimals.
International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 2015
Erroneous examplesstep-by-step problem solutions with one or more errors for students to find and... more Erroneous examplesstep-by-step problem solutions with one or more errors for students to find and fixhold great potential to help students learn. In this study, which is a replication of a prior study (Adams et al. 2014), but with a much larger population (390 vs. 208), middle school students learned about decimals either by working with interactive, web-based erroneous examples or with more traditional supported problems to solve. The erroneous examples group was interactively prompted to find, explain, and fix errors in decimal problems, while the problemsolving group was prompted to solve the same decimal problems and explain their solutions. Both groups were given correctness feedback on their work by the webbased program. Although the two groups did not differ on an immediate post-test, the erroneous examples group performed significantly better on a delayed test, given a week after the initial post-test (d=.33, for gain scores), replicating the pattern of the prior study. Interestingly, the problem solving group reported liking the intervention more than the erroneous examples group (d=.21 for liking rating in a questionnaire) and found the user interface easier to interact with (d=.37), suggesting that what students like does not always lead to the best learning outcomes. This result is consistent with that of desirable difficulty studies, in which a more cognitively challenging learning task results in deeper and longer-lasting learning.
International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 2017
Excitement about learning from computer-based games has been papable in recent years and has led ... more Excitement about learning from computer-based games has been papable in recent years and has led to the development of many educational games. However, there are relatively few sound empirical studes in the scientific literature that have shown the benefits of learning mathematics from games as opposed to more traditional approaches. The empirical study reported in this paper provides evidence that a mathematics educational game can provide superior learning opportunities, as well as be more engaging. In a study involving 153 students from two middle schools, 70 students learned about decimals from playing an educational game—Decimal Point—whereas 83 students learned the same content by a more conventional, computer-based approach. The game led to significantly better gain scores in solving decimal problems, on both an immediate (d = .43) and delayed (d = .37) posttest and was rated as significantly more enjoyable (d = .95). Low prior knowledge students especially benefitted from th...
Erroneous examples are an instructional technique that hold promise to help children learn. In th... more Erroneous examples are an instructional technique that hold promise to help children learn. In the study reported in this paper, sixth and seventh grade math students were presented with erroneous examples of decimal problems and were asked to explain and correct those examples. The problems were presented as interactive exercises on the Internet, with feedback provided on correctness of the student explanations and corrections. A second (control) group of students were given problems to solve, also with feedback on correctness. With over 100 students per condition, an erroneous example effect was found: students who worked with the interactive erroneous examples did significantly better than the problem solving students on a delayed posttest. While this finding is highly encouraging, our ultimate research question is this: how can erroneous examples be adaptively presented to students, targeted at their most deeply held misconceptions, to best leverage their effectiveness? This paper discusses how the results of the present study will lead us to an adaptive version of the erroneous examples material.
Human teaching strategies are usually inferred from transcripts of face-to-face conversations or ... more Human teaching strategies are usually inferred from transcripts of face-to-face conversations or computer-mediated dialogs between learner and tutor. However, during natural interactions there are no constraints on the human tutor's behavior and thus tutorial strategies are difficult to analyze and reproduce in a computational model. To overcome this problem, we have realized a Wizard of Oz interface, which by constraining the tutor's interaction makes explicit his decisions about why, how, and when to assist the student in a computer-based learning environment. These decisions automatically generate natural language utterances of different types according to two "politeness" strategies. We have successfully used the interface to model tutorial strategies.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2008
For over a decade, researchers have been investigating the potential of pedagogical agents to pro... more For over a decade, researchers have been investigating the potential of pedagogical agents to promote learning. Most of the research in this area has focused on addressing students' cognitive needs at the expense of affective needs. Intelligent tutoring systems designed following this philosophy have been very effective compared to traditional methods of tutoring (Ritter, Anderson, Koedinger, &
International Journal of Human-computer Studies / International Journal of Man-machine Studies, 2011
College students learned to solve chemistry stoichiometry problems with a web-based intelligent t... more College students learned to solve chemistry stoichiometry problems with a web-based intelligent tutor that provided hints and feedback, using either polite or direct language. There was a pattern in which students with low prior knowledge of chemistry performed better on subsequent problem-solving tests if they learned from the polite tutor rather than the direct tutor (d=.78 on an immediate test,
Excitement about learning from computer-based games has been palpable in recent years and has led... more Excitement about learning from computer-based games has been palpable in recent years and has led to the development of many educational games. However, there are relatively few sound empirical studies in the scientific literature that have shown the benefits of learning mathematics from games as opposed to more traditional approaches. The empirical study reported in this paper provides evidence that a mathematics educational game can provide superior learning opportunities, as well as be more engaging. In a study involving 153 students from two middle schools, 70 students learned about decimals from playing an educational game—Decimal Point—whereas 83 students learned the same content by a more conventional, computer-based approach. The game led to significantly better gain scores in solving decimal problems, on both an immediate (d = .43) and delayed (d = .37) posttest and was rated as significantly more enjoyable (d = .95). Low prior knowledge students especially benefitted from the game. This paper also summarizes the game's design characteristics.
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