In numerous studies, intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) have proven effective in helping students learn mathematics. Prior work posits that their effectiveness derives from efficiently providing eventually-correct practice opportunities. Yet, there is little empirical evidence on how learning processes with ITSs compare to other forms of…

To enhance the effectiveness of educational games, researchers have advocated adding learning supports in educational games, but this may come at the cost of disrupting the learning experience. Embedding virtual companions to provide learning supports may be an effective solution that naturally integrates learning supports into the game. However,…

Math anxiety has been found to negatively correlate with math achievement, affecting students' choices to take fewer math classes and avoid math educational opportunities. Educational technology tools can ameliorate some of the negative effects of math anxiety. We examined students' math anxiety, effort in an educational technology platform, and…

Active learning promises improved educational outcomes yet depends on students' sustained motivation to engage in practice. Goal setting can enhance learner engagement. However, past evidence of the effectiveness of setting goals tends to be limited to non-digital learning settings and does not scale well as it requires active teacher or parent…

Mastery learning improves learning proficiency and efficiency. However, the overpractice of skills--students spending time on skills they have already mastered--remains a fundamental challenge for tutoring systems. Previous research has reduced overpractice through the development of better problem selection algorithms and the authoring of focused…

Background: Providing adaptive scaffolds to help learners develop effective self-regulated learning (SRL) behaviours has been an important goal for intelligent learning environments. Adaptive scaffolding is especially important in open-ended learning environments (OELE), where novice learners often face difficulties in completing their learning…

Educational chatbots promise many benefits for teaching and learning. Although chatbot use cases in this research field are rapidly growing, most studies focus on individual users rather than on collaborative group settings. To address this issue, this paper investigates how chatbot-mediated learning can be designed to foster middle school…

Reading requires appropriate strategies to spark initial interest and sustain engagement. One promising strategy is the pedagogical approach of learning-by-teaching, transforming learners into active participants. Integrating this approach into digitalized and individualized reading contexts has the potential to foster the development of young…

Although Machine Learning (ML) is used already in our daily lives, few are familiar with the technology. This poses new challenges for students to understand ML, its potential, and limitations as well as to empower them to become creators of intelligent solutions. To effectively guide the learning of ML, this article proposes a scoring rubric for…

Knowledge components (KCs) define the underlying skill model of intelligent educational software, and they are critical to understanding and improving the efficacy of learning technology. In this research, we show how learning curve analysis is used to fit a KC model--one that was created after use of the learning technology--which can then be…

Similar content has tremendous utility in classroom and online learning environments. For example, similar content can be used to combat cheating, track students' learning over time, and model students' latent knowledge. These different use cases for similar content all rely on different notions of similarity, which make it difficult to determine…

It is well known that learners using intelligent learning environments make different use of the feedback provided by the intelligent learning environment and exhibit different patterns of behaviour. Traditional approaches to measuring such behaviour have focused on observational methods, think-aloud protocols, ratings and log data. More recently,…

Many studies have shown that visual representations can enhance student understanding of STEM concepts. However, prior research suggests that visual representations alone are not necessarily effective across a broad range of students. To address this problem, we created a novel, scaffolded form of diagrammatic self-explanation in which students…

Student persistence in online learning environments has typically been studied at the macro-level (e.g., completion of an online course, number of academic terms completed, etc.). The current examines student persistence in an adaptive learning environment, ALEKS (Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces). Specifically, the study explores the…

How should a wide variety of educational activities be sequenced to maximize student learning? Although some experimental studies have addressed this question, educational data mining methods may be able to evaluate a wider range of possibilities and better handle many simultaneous sequencing constraints. We introduce Sequencing Constraint…