Sensor-free affect detectors can detect student affect using their activities within intelligent tutoring systems or other online learning environments rather than using sensors. This technology has made affect detection more scalable and less invasive. However, existing detectors are either interpretable but less accurate (e.g., classical algorithms such as logistic regression) or more accurate but uninterpretable (e.g., neural networks). We investigate the use of a new type of neural networks that are monotonic after the first layer for affect detection that can strike a balance between accuracy and interpretability. Results on a real world student affect dataset show that monotonic neural networks achieve comparable detection accuracy to their non-monotonic counterparts while offering some level of interpretability.
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Accurate and Interpretable Sensor-free Affect Detectors via Monotonic Neural Networks
Sensor-free affect detectors can detect student affect using their activities within intelligent tutoring systems or other online learning environments rather than using sensors. This technology has made affect detection more scalable and less invasive. However, existing detectors are either interpretable but less accurate (e.g., classical algorithms such as logistic regression) or more accurate but uninterpretable (e.g., neural networks). We investigate the use of a new type of neural networks that are monotonic after the first layer for affect detection that can strike a balance between accuracy and interpretability. Results on a real- world student affect dataset show that monotonic neural networks achieve comparable detection accuracy to their non-monotonic counterparts while offering some level of interpretability.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1724889
- PAR ID:
- 10157371
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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