Abstract
We examined high-level help (HLH) seeking behaviour of students by data mining in SQL-Tutor. Students who used HLH very frequently had the lowest learning rate; their learning was also shallow. They attempted very difficult problems compared to other groups but only solved very easy problems, suggesting that they were usually situated well beyond their Zone of Proximal Development. They also abandoned a large number of problems without solving them. Manual inspection of the logs showed erratic problem solving behaviour, suggesting a “guess and copy” strategy.
The group of students who used HLH very infrequently seemed to contain two distinct sub-groups: students with high expertise, and students with very low expertise who still did not use HLH. Learning rates were highest for students who used moderate HLH. Students with lower usage of HLH solved the most difficult problems comparatively, without the use of HLH, and had high learning rates, suggesting the ITS is most beneficial for this group of students.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Mitrović, T.: An Intelligent SQL Tutor on the Web. IJAIED 13, 173–197 (2003)
Aleven, V., Koedinger, K.: Limitations of Student Control: Do Students Know when They Need Help? In: Gauthier, G., VanLehn, K., Frasson, C. (eds.) ITS 2000. LNCS, vol. 1839, pp. 292–303. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)
Baker, R., Corbett, A., Koedinger, K., Evenson, S., Roll, I., Wagner, A., Naim, M., Raspat, J., Baker, D., Beck, J.: Adapting to When Students Game an Intelligent Tutoring System. In: Ikeda, M., Ashley, K.D., Chan, T.-W. (eds.) ITS 2006. LNCS, vol. 4053, pp. 392–401. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Baker, R., Corbett, A., Koedinger, K., Roll, I.: Detecting When Students Game the System, Across Tutor Subjects and Classroom Cohorts. In: Ardissono, L., Brna, P., Mitrović, A. (eds.) UM 2005. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3538, pp. 220–224. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Koedinger, K., Mathan, S.: Distinguishing Qualitatively Different Kinds of Learning Using Log Files and Learning Curves. In: Lester, J.C., Vicari, R.M., Paraguaçu, F. (eds.) ITS 2004. LNCS, vol. 3220, pp. 39–46. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Martin, B., Koedinger, K., Mitrovic, T., Mathan, S.: On Using Learning Curves to Evaluate ITS. In: AIED 2005, pp. 419–426. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2005)
Vygotsky, L.: Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1978)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Mathews, M., Mitrović, T. (2008). How Does Students’ Help-Seeking Behaviour Affect Learning?. In: Woolf, B.P., Aïmeur, E., Nkambou, R., Lajoie, S. (eds) Intelligent Tutoring Systems. ITS 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5091. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69132-7_40
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69132-7_40
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-69130-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69132-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)