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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

On The Benefits Of Seeking (And Avoiding) Help In Online Problem-Solving Environments, Ryan Baker, Ido Roll, Vincent Aleven, Kenneth Koedinger Dec 2013

On The Benefits Of Seeking (And Avoiding) Help In Online Problem-Solving Environments, Ryan Baker, Ido Roll, Vincent Aleven, Kenneth Koedinger

Ryan S.J.d. Baker

Seeking the!right!level!of!help!at!the!right!time!can!support!learning.! However,!in!the!context!of!online!problem=solving!environments,!it!is!still!not! entirely!clear!which!help=seeking!strategies!are!desired.!We!use!fine=grained data! from!38!high=school!students!who!worked!with!the!Geometry!Cognitive!Tutor!for! two!months to!better!understand!the!associations!between!specific!help=seeking! patterns!and!learning.!We evaluate how!students’!help=seeking!behaviours!on!each! step!in!a!tutored!problem!are associated!with their!success!on!subsequent!steps that! require!the!same!skills.!Analysing!learning!at!the!skill level!allows!us to!compare! different!help=seeking!patterns!within!a!single!student,!controlling!for!between= student!variations.!Overall,!asking!for!help!on!challenging!steps is!associated!with! productive!learning, and!overusing!help!is!associated!with!poorer!learning. However,!contrary!to!many help=seeking!theories,!avoiding!help (and!failing repeatedly)!is!associated!with!better learning!than!seeking!help on!steps!for!which! students!have!low!prior!knowledge.!These!results!suggest!that!novice!learners!may! benefit!from!engaging!in!solution!attempts before!they!can!make!sense!of!given! assistance. Methodological!benefits!for!using!local!measures!of!learning!are! discussed!and!comparisons!are!drawn!to!other!forms!of!Productive!Failure!in! problem=solving.!


Towards General Models Of Effective Science Inquiry In Virtual Performance Assessments, Ryan Baker, Jody Clarke-Midura, J. Ocumpaugh Dec 2013

Towards General Models Of Effective Science Inquiry In Virtual Performance Assessments, Ryan Baker, Jody Clarke-Midura, J. Ocumpaugh

Ryan S.J.d. Baker

Recent interest in online assessment of scientific inquiry has led to several new online systems that attempt to assess these skills, but producing models that detect when students are successfully practicing these skills can be challenging. In this paper, we study the models that assess student inquiry in an immersive virtual environment, where a student navigates an avatar around a world, speaking to in-game characters, collecting samples, and conducting scientific tests with those samples in the virtual laboratory. To this goal, we leverage log file data from nearly two thousand middle-school students using Virtual Performance Assessment (VPA), a software system …