Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1994. / Includes tables and appendices. Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Bruce R. Vogeli. Dissertation Committee: J. Philip Smith. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-116).

Thesis (M.S.C.I.T.)--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2006. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on May 25, 2006). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Central Florida, 2008. / Adviser: Barbara A. Fritzsche. Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-150).

As civilization becomes more dependent on complex technology, education develops increasing importance. Computerized tutoring is a practical mechanism for making advanced education more widely available, especially for ongoing maintenance of skills in the workplace and other situations outside formal institutions of learning. We built a simulation-based intelligent system for teaching medical personnel cardiac resuscitation skills, including a novel mechanism for monitoring student performance and dynamically adapting the simulation to the student's needs, using an expert model of the domain encoded with planning representations. Domain topics were explicitly represented so the system could reason about the student's learning needs and accomplishments, while adapting the simulation context toward states where profitable learning was expected, keeping the student challenged but not overwhelmed. Knowledge of what to teach was separated from knowledge of how to teach, leading to simplified representations that support improved communication between domain and system experts as demonstrated by the fact that a major change in the medical standards adopted during system development was implemented in about a week. The system used planning techniques to make common sense interpretations of unexpected situations while reasoning about simulations of multiple, coordinated agents with distinct roles performing multiple tasks. The system combined techniques from simulation, planning and user modeling in a multimedia tutoring environment, demanding consideration of the different strengths and idiosyncrasies of these components. This approach to integrating domain models, student models, course goals and pedagogical knowledge to create an individualized study plan in a tutoring system is novel and results in improved learning times. An iterative development methodology with formative evaluations of the system involving two classes of medical students helped direct the technology to meet the practical needs of the user community and ensured that the final system was accepted in the target environment. Results of this evaluation support our architecture and development approach. This research contributes to global access to knowledge which, it is hoped, will lead to improved decision making at all levels of civilization, providing for more efficient use of resources, more effective conflict resolution strategies and an overall increase in the satisfaction of critical social goals.

The dissertation provides an analysis of how the content and organization of explanations function to achieve communicative goals under potentially conflicting constraints, and applies this analysis to the design of a planner for generation of explanations by computer. An implementation of this planner as a multimedia question answering system is described. The functional analysis has four major subparts: (1) A theory of the kinds of knowledge that can provide the basis for "informatively satisfying" responses to a given question. (2) A theory of context sensitive constraints on the choice between alternate domain models that compete as the basis for answering a given question. (3) A theory of how supplemental explanations aid the comprehension and retention of the primary explanation. (4) A theory of how the sequencing of the parts of an explanation enhances the communicative functionality of those parts. The functional aspects of explanation just outlined imply a variety of explanation planning subtasks having distinct information processing requirements. A planning architecture is presented that matches these planning subtasks to appropriate mechanisms: (1) Top-down goal refinement translates queries into specifications of relevant knowledge on which a response can be based. (2) Prioritized preferences restrict competing domain models to those that are expected to be both informative and comprehensible to the questioner at a given point in the dialogue. (3) Plan critics examine the evolving plan and post new goals to supplement the explanation as needed. (4) A constrained graph traversal mechanism sequences the parts of an explanation in a manner respecting certain functional relationships between the parts. Contributions include: (1) the clarification and integration of a variety of functional aspects of explanatory text, (2) an analysis of the roles and limitations of various explanation planning mechanisms, (3) the design of a flexible explanation planner that applies various constraints on explanation independently of each other, and (4) an approach to selection between multiple domain models that is more general than previous approaches. Together these contributions clarify the correspondence between knowledge about communication, planning tasks, and types of discourse structure and provide improved interactive explanation capabilities.

Across many domains, Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) are used to facilitate practice, providing a customized learning environment and personal tutoring experience for students to learn at their own pace through effective student modeling and feedback. Most current ITSs are built around cognitive learning theories including Ohlsson's theory on learning from performance errors and Anderson's ACT theories of skill acquisition which focus primarily on providing negative feedback or corrective feedback, facilitating learning by correcting errors. Research into the behavior and methods used by expert tutors suggest that experienced tutors use positive feedback quite extensively and successfully. This research investigates positive feedback; learning by capturing and responding to correct behavior, supported by cognitive learning theories. The research aim is to develop and implement a systematic approach to delivering positive feedback in Intelligent Tutoring Systems, in particular SQL-Tutor, a constraint-based tutor which instructs users in the design of Structured Query Language (SQL) database queries. An evaluation study was conducted at the University of Canterbury involving a control group of students who used the original version of SQL-Tutor giving only negative feedback and an experimental group using the modified version of SQL-Tutor where both negative and positive feedback were given. Results of the study show that students learn quite similarly from one system to another, however those in the experimental group take significantly less time to solve the same number of problems, in fewer attempts compared to those in the control group. Students in the experimental group also learn approximately the same number of concepts as students in the control but in much less time. This indicates that positive feedback results in increased amount of learning over a shorter period of time and improves the effectiveness of learning in ITSs.

Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Pretoria, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2005. Graduate Programme in Communication and Culture. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-103). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss &rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR11755

This study measured the computer competency of New Hampshire high school seniors, using the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1986 assessment. Six different test booklets, cumulatively containing 124 cognitive items and 75 demographic items were used. An additional 35 demographic questions beyond the NAEP items were collected from a survey designed for this dissertation. One hundred and sixty-eight students (95 males, 68 females, 5 unknown) from eight public and two private high schools across the state were sampled based upon an enrollment size distribution. The total enrollment of the sample schools represented 15% of the total state high school enrollment of 52,400 students. 8.4% of the seniors at participating schools were assessed. Essentially all students have completed a one semester computer competency course, as required by state regulations. The data was analyzed utilizing non-parametric statistics for demographics and Z-Tests for comparisons to the NAEP national sample. The microcomputer statistical packages of MINITAB and EXECUSTAT were used. Conclusions. First, the computer competency levels of New Hampshire are significantly greater than both the national average and the higher New England average as measured during the NAEP national survey in 1986 at the 95% confidence level. Secondly, it made no difference whether the computer competency course was taken in (1) In high school or junior high school. (2) A Public or private school. (3) A small, medium or large school. (4) Different types of communities (i.e. city, rural etc.). Third, the cognitive outcome was significantly correlated at the 95% confidence level with: (1) Sex of the student. (2) Number of years of computer usage. (3) The curriculum content of the first course. (4) Semesters of computer courses studied. (5) Time of the first computer course. (6) Word processing usage. Finally, the cognitive outcome was not significantly affected by the following characteristics: (1) Attitude. (2) Self-assessment. (3) Home computer. (4) Programming courses. (5) Timing of last computer class. Students perceived that computers were not integrated into the curriculum as many in the state expected. Classroom computer usage was substantially limited to computer classes. Students overwhelmingly desired more computer usage in classes.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-158).