Recent advances in the development of large language models (LLMs) have led to power innovative suites of generative AI tools that are capable of not only simulating human-like-dialogue but also composing more complex artifacts, such as social media posts, essays, and even research articles. While this abstract has been written entirely by a human…

We investigated methods to enhance the generalizability of large language models (LLMs) designed to classify dimensions of collaborative discourse during small group work. Our research utilized five diverse datasets that spanned various grade levels, demographic groups, collaboration settings, and curriculum units. We explored different model…

Deep learning models for text classification have been increasingly used in intelligent tutoring systems and educational writing assistants. However, the scarcity of data in many educational settings, as well as certain imbalances in counts among the annotated labels of educational datasets, limits the generalizability and expressiveness of…

We propose a novel method for automated short answer grading (ASAG) designed for practical use in real-world settings. The method combines LLM embedding similarity with a nonlinear regression function, enabling accurate prediction from a small number of expert-graded responses. In this use case, a grader manually assesses a few responses, while…

There has been a growing interest in developing learner models to enhance learning and teaching experiences in educational environments. However, existing works have primarily focused on structured environments relying on meticulously crafted representations of tasks, thereby limiting the agent's ability to generalize skills across tasks. In this…

Student modeling is central to many educational technologies as it enables predicting future learning outcomes and designing targeted instructional strategies. However, open-ended learning domains pose challenges for accurately modeling students due to the diverse behaviors and a large space of possible misconceptions. To approach these…

Knowledge tracing models have enabled a range of intelligent tutoring systems to provide feedback to students. However, existing methods for knowledge tracing in learning sciences are predominantly reliant on statistical data and instructor-defined knowledge components, making it challenging to integrate AI-generated educational content with…

We propose an innovative, effective, and data-agnostic method to train a deep-neural network model with an extremely small training dataset, called VELR (Voting-based Ensemble Learning with Rejection). In educational research and practice, providing valid labels for a sufficient amount of data to be used for supervised learning can be very costly…

Think-aloud protocols are a common method to study self-regulated learning (SRL) during learning by problem-solving. Previous studies have manually transcribed and coded students' verbalizations, labeling the presence or absence of SRL strategies and then examined these SRL codes in relation to learning. However, the coding process is difficult to…

Peer assessment can be a more effective pedagogical method when reviewers provide quality feedback. But what makes feedback helpful to reviewees? Other studies have identified quality feedback as focusing on detecting problems, providing suggestions, or pointing out where changes need to be made. However, it is important to seek students'…

We explore how different components of an Automatic Short Answer Grading (ASAG) model affect the model's ability to generalize to questions outside of those used for training. For supervised automatic grading models, human ratings are primarily used as ground truth labels. Producing such ratings can be resource heavy, as subject matter experts…

The University of Palermo is proud to host the 18th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM) in Palermo, Italy, from July 20 to July 23, 2025. EDM is the annual flagship conference of the International Educational Data Mining Society. This year's theme is "New Goals, New Measurements, New Incentives to Learn." The theme…

Peer assessment has been widely applied across diverse academic fields over the last few decades, and has demonstrated its effectiveness. However, the advantages of peer assessment can only be achieved with high-quality peer reviews. Previous studies have found that high-quality review comments usually comprise several features (e.g., contain…

Students who take an online course, such as a MOOC, use the course's discussion forum to ask questions or reach out to instructors when encountering an issue. However, reading and responding to students' questions is difficult to scale because of the time needed to consider each message. As a result, critical issues may be left unresolved, and…

Sentiment Analysis is a field of Natural Language Processing which aims at classifying the author's sentiment in text. This paper first describes a sentiment analysis model for students' comments about professor performance. The model achieved impressive results for comments collected from student surveys conducted at a private university in…