WHAT DO STUDENTS DO WHEN USING A STEP-BASED TUTORING SYSTEM?

Abstract

In analyses of human tutoring, the learning gains are often more strongly correlated with the student’s behavior during the tutoring session, rather than with the tutor’s behavior. However, we know of only one study that analyzes student reactions when they are working with a computer tutor. This motivated us to study the behavior of students when they worked with a step-based physics tutoring system, Andes. As students solved problems on Andes, they gave talk-aloud protocols that were recorded along with their computer screen. Our main finding is that when students asked the tutoring system for help after getting minimal negative feedback, they tended to learn new
knowledge or be reminded of something they knew already. On the other hand, if they responded to minimal negative feedback by trying again repeatedly and not asking for a hint, then they tended to fail both to learn and to correct the mistake.