Improving students’ help-seeking skills using metacognitive feedback in an intelligent tutoring system

• Published in: Learning and instruction Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 267 - 280
• Main Authors: Roll, Ido, Aleven, Vincent, McLaren, Bruce M., Koedinger, Kenneth R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2011; Elsevier
• Subjects: Cognitive tutors; Feedback (Response); Geometry; Help Seeking; Intelligent Tutoring Systems; Intervention; Metacognition; Program Effectiveness; Self Evaluation (Individuals); Self-regulated learning; Tutoring; Tutors; Help seeking; Self-regulated learning; Cognitive tutors; Intelligent tutoring systems; Metacognition
• ISSN: 0959-4752; 1873-3263
• DOI: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2010.07.004

The present research investigated whether immediate metacognitive feedback on students’ help-seeking errors can help students acquire better help-seeking skills. The Help Tutor, an intelligent tutor agent for help seeking, was integrated into a commercial tutoring system for geometry, the Geometry Cognitive Tutor. Study 1, with 58 students, found that the real-time assessment of students’ help-seeking behavior correlated with other independent measures of help seeking, and that the Help Tutor improved students’ help-seeking behavior while learning Geometry with the Geometry Cognitive Tutor. Study 2, with 67 students, evaluated more elaborated support that included, in addition to the Help Tutor, also help-seeking instruction and support for self-assessment. The study replicated the effect found in Study 1. It was also found that the improved help-seeking skills transferred to learning new domain-level content during the month following the intervention, while the help-seeking support was no longer in effect. Implications for metacognitive tutoring are discussed. ► A computational model of help seeking was validated using independent measures. ► The model assesses help seeking in a tutoring system unobtrusively in real time. ► Automated and adaptive metacognitive feedback improved help-seeking behaviors. ► The improvement transferred to new instructional units with no metacognitive support.