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1. Long Term Retention of Programming Concepts Learned Using Software Tutors

   Kumar, Amruth N. (June 2020, Intelligent Tutoring Systems 2020)

   Do students retain the programming concepts they have learned using software tutors over the long term? In order to answer this question, we analyzed the data collected by a software tutor on selection statements. We used the data of the students who used the tutor more than once to see whether they had retained for the second session what they had learned during the first session. We found that students retained over 71% of selection concepts that they had learned during the first session. The more problems students solved during the first session, the greater the percentage of retention. Even when students already knew a concept and did not benefit from using the tutor, a small percentage of concepts were for-gotten from the first session to the next, corresponding to transience of learning. Transience of learning varied with concepts. We list confounding factors of the study. 

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2. Comparing Bayesian Knowledge Tracing Model Against Naïve Mastery Model

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80421-3_9  

   Getseva, Vanesa; Kumar, Amruth N. (June 2021, Intelligent Tutoring Systems)

   null (Ed.)

   We conducted a study to see if using Bayesian Knowledge Tracing (BKT) models would save time and problems in programming tutors. We used legacy data collected by two programming tutors to compute BKT models for every concept covered by each tutor. The novelty of our model was that slip and guess parameters were computed for every problem presented by each tutor. Next, we used cross-validation to evaluate whether the resulting BKT model would have reduced the number of practice problems solved and time spent by the students represented in the legacy data. We found that in 64.23% of the concepts, students would have saved time with the BKT model. The savings varied among concepts. Overall, students would have saved a mean of 1.28 minutes and 1.23 problems per concept. We also found that BKT models were more effective at saving time and problems on harder concepts. 

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3. Providing the Option to Skip Feedback – A Reproducibility Study

   Kumar, Amruth N. (May 2019, Intelligent Tutoring Systems)

   Would providing choice lead to improved learning with a tutor? We had conducted and reported a controlled study earlier, wherein, introductory programing students were given the choice of skipping the line-by-line feedback provided after each incorrect answer in a tutor on if/if-else statements. Contrary to expectations, the study found that the choice to skip feedback did not lead to greater learning. We tried to reproduce these results using two tutors on if/if-else and switch statements, and with a larger subject pool. We found that whereas choice did not lead to greater learning on if/if-else tutor in this reproducibility study either, it resulted in decreased learning on switch tutor. We hypothesize that skipping feedback is indeed detrimental to learning. But, inter-relationships among the concepts covered by a tutor and the transfer of learning facilitated by these relationships compensate for the negative effect of skipping line-by-line feedback. We also found contradictory results between the two studies which highlight the need for reproducibility studies in empirical research. 

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4. Not a Team but Learning as One: The Impact of Consistent Attendance on Discourse Diversification in Math Group Modeling

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3627043.3659554  

   Abdelshiheed, Mark; Jacobs, Jennifer; D'Mello, Sidney (June 2024, ACM)

   This work investigates relationships between consistent attendance —attendance rates in a group that maintains the same tutor and students across the school year— and learning in small group tutoring sessions. We analyzed data from two large urban districts consisting of 206 9th-grade student groups (3 − 6 students per group) for a total of 803 students and 75 tutors. The students attended small group tutorials approximately every other day during the school year and completed a pre and post-assessment of math skills at the start and end of the year, respectively. First, we found that the attendance rates of the group predicted individual assessment scores better than the individual attendance rates of students comprising that group. Second, we found that groups with high consistent attendance had more frequent and diverse tutor and student talk centering around rich mathematical discussions. Whereas we emphasize that changing tutors or groups might be necessary, our findings suggest that consistently attending tutorial sessions as a group with the same tutor might lead the group to implicitly learn as a team despite not being one. 

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5. Using Trained Tutors to Improve Mechanical Engineering Technology Student Writing

   Clippinger, D.; Pflueger, R. C.; Nozaki, S.; Bodenhamer, J. (June 2023, American Society for Engineering Education)

   In an earlier work, the authors compared the writing style of Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) students in an “untutored” state to the writing style of “tutored” students, where the tutoring was provided by “generic” writing center tutors. The results of this study showed that aside from changes in the diction of the students’ work, there was little measurable improvement in the quality of student writing as measured by both the AAC&U VALUE Rubric and by the authors’ voice-development-style-diction method. The current work builds on the results of the previous work by providing training on a just-in-time basis for the writing center tutors. As with previous years, the students participating in the study were MET students in a last-semester capstone industrial design course. This course is organized around a series of open-ended industry-sponsored projects for which the students are expected to develop a solution to a mechanical engineering problem. The students work on the projects in teams of three or four students and complete the work over a two-semester sequence offered annually on a fall-spring basis. The assignment in the study was identical to that of previous years: an “analysis” report in which students are expected to apply content from previous courses to one aspect of the industry-sponsored design project. The present study will compare the results from three iterations of the study: the work of “untutored” students, i.e. those who did not received any writing center assistance whatsoever, those who tutored by “generic” writing center tutors, and lastly, the works of those tutored by tutors specifically trained in support of the specific intervention. In the two cases where tutor interaction occurred, it was required as a component of the course to ensure participation by the entire student cohort. In general, the interactions with the specially-trained tutors produced works with a more mature writing style on the part of the student as compared to those works produced by students who had interacted with the untrained tutors or no tutors at all. The work will also discuss survey data collected on the “generic” and specially-trained tutoring sessions and discuss the differences in the results. Preliminary results show that the specially-trained tutors reported pronounced levels of engagement in the tutoring session, as measured by student note-taking, student questions, student receptiveness to suggestions, and student desire to understand the reasoning behind the tutors’ suggestions. Specially-trained tutors also reported significantly higher levels of student interest suggestions about grammar, style, content, format, and citations. Overall, it is concluded that specific training for the tutors was most associated with increased levels of interaction between tutor and student. As the students in the final group (“trained tutors”) were told prior to the tutoring session that the tutors were “specially trained,” it remains to be determined if the increased interaction was due to better tutor preparation or a higher estimation of the value of the tutoring session on the part of the students receiving the tutoring. This is proposed as an extension to the current work. 

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