Analysis:Student affect and interaction behavior in ASSISTments
| Student affect and interaction behavior in ASSISTments | |
| Author(s) | Paul Inventado Peter Scupelli |
|---|---|
| Data set(s) used | ASSISTments problem-student-level data| ASSISTments problem-level data |
| Usage in design patterns | %TITLE% %TITLE% %TITLE% %TITLE% %TITLE% |
Student learning strategies
Online learning systems that host student exercises and activities sometimes provide feedback in the form of hints or additional explanations. Feedback can help students figure out the answer, but can also be used for gaming the system, which hurts learning [1]. Gaming is taking advantage of system feedback to get the answer without actually learning such as continuously requesting for hints or trying out all possible answers.
Such behavior was seen in student data collected from ASSISTments (i.e., quickly requesting for hints to get the answer). However, further analysis showed that some students seemed to game the system to get the answer for one problem, but no longer displayed such behavior in a similar problem. It is possible that some students actually want to display all the hints not just to get the answer, but learn how to arrive to that answer.
Effects of over-practice on student affect
Frustration is an emotion often experienced by students while learning. It is unclear whether it hinders learning or pushes students to exert more effort to learn (cf. Artino & Jones 2012[2]; Patrick et al. 1993[3], Pekrun et al. 2002[4]). The role of frustration in learning with ASSISTments was investigated using both problem-student-level data and problem-level data that described student behavior while answering a series of questions in the system.
First, problems that likely led to student frustration were identified by ranking their average frustration confidence values. The most frustrating problems were investigated manually and revealed that they were usually difficult to understand and their hints were confusing. However, the data also showed that students were frustrated even when they answered questions correctly.
The problem level instances were investigated further by referring to the student-level data, which described students' low level actions while answering the problem (e.g., order of hint requests and answer attempts, answer correctness, time duration between actions). Students who were frustrated even when they got the answer correctly, were observed to have spent a significant amount of time answering the exercise and consistently getting the answers correctly. This could mean that students were frustrated at the type and sequence of problems they were asked to solve rather than the problem itself.
References
- ↑ Baker, R., Walonoski, J., Heffernan, N., Roll, I., Corbett, A., and Koedinger, K. (2008). Why students engage in “gaming the system” behavior in interactive learning environments. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 19(2):185-224.
- ↑ Artino, A.R. and Jones, K.D. (2012). Exploring the complex relations between achievement emotions and self-regulated learning behaviors in online learning. The Internet and Higher Education 15, 3, 170-175.
- ↑ Patrick, B.C., Skinner, E.A. and Connell, J.P. (1993). What motivates children's behavior and emotion? Joint effects of perceived control and autonomy in the academic domain. Journal of Personality and social Psychology 65, 4, 781-791.
- ↑ Pekrun,R., Goetz, T., Titz, W. and Perry, R.P. (2002). Academic emotions in students' self-regulated learning and achievement: A program of qualitative and quantitative research. Educational psychologist 37, 2 (2002), Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia, PA, 91-105.