As one of the central problems in the area of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs), student modelling has been widely used to assist in systems’ decision making and students’ learning. On the one hand, by reasoning about students’ knowledge in the instructional domain, a system is able to adapt its pedagogical actions in order to provide a customized learning environment. These actions may include individualized problem-selection, tailored instructions and feedback, as well as updating the presentation of student models. On the other hand, students can reflect on their own learning progress by viewing individual Open Student Models (OSMs) and enhance their meta-cognitive skills by learning from the system’s estimation of their knowledge levels. It is believed that making the information in the student model available to students can raise students’ awareness of their strengths and weaknesses in the corresponding domain and hence allow them to develop a more effective and efficient way of learning. An OSM has been developed in EER-Tutor. EER-Tutor is a web-enhanced ITS that supports university students in learning conceptual database modelling. Students design Enhanced Entity-Relationship (EER) diagrams and receive different level of feedback in a problem-solving environment. The pedagogical decisions on feedback generation and problem selection are made according to student models. Previously, student models in EER-Tutor are presented to students on request as skill meters. Skill meters have been proved useful in helping students to improve their meta-cognitive skills. However, as the simplest presentation of a student model, skill meters contain very limited information. Some studies show that an OSM with multiple views is more effective since it supports individual preferences and different educational purposes. The focus of our work is to develop a variety of presentations for the OSM in EER-Tutor. For this purposes, we have modified the system to include not only skill meters but also other presentation styles. An evaluation study has been performed after the development. Both subjective and objective results have been collected. This thesis presents the extended EER-Tutor, followed by the analysis of the evaluation study.

Robotic technologies possess great potential to enter our daily lives because they have the ability to interact with our world. But our world is inherently social. Whilst humans often have a natural understanding of this complex environment, it is much more challenging for robots. The field of social Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) seeks to endow robots with the characteristics and behaviours that would allow for intuitive multimodal interaction. Education is a social process and previous research has found strong links between the social behaviour of teachers and student learning. This therefore presents a promising application opportunity for social human-robot interaction. The thesis presented here is that a robot with tailored social behaviour will positively influence the outcomes of tutoring interactions with children and consequently lead to an increase in child learning when compared to a robot without this social behaviour. It has long been established that one-to-one tutoring provides a more effective means of learning than the current typical school classroom model (one teacher to many students). Schools increasingly supplement their teaching with technology such as tablets and laptops to offer this personalised experience, but a growing body of evidence suggests that robots lead to greater learning than other media. It is posited that this is due to the increased social presence of a robot. This work adds to the evidence that robots hold a social advantage over other technological media, and that this indeed leads to increased learning. In addition, the work here contributes to existing knowledge by seeking to expand our understanding of how to manipulate robot social behaviour in educational interactions such that the behaviour is tailored for this purpose. To achieve this, a means of characterising social behaviour is required, as is a means of measuring the success of the behaviour for the interaction. To characterise the social behaviour of the robot, the concept of immediacy is taken from the human-human literature and validated for use in HRI. Greater use of immediacy behaviours is also tied to increased cognitive learning gains in humans. This can be used to predict the same effect for the use of social behaviour by a robot, with learning providing an objective measure of success for the robot behaviour given the education application. It is found here that when implemented on a robot in tutoring scenarios, greater use of immediacy behaviours generally does tend to lead to increased learning, but a complex picture emerges. Merely the addition of more social behaviour is insufficient to increase learning; it is found that a balance should be struck between the addition of social cues, and the congruency of these cues.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T16:15:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcos Munhoz da Costa.pdf: 1070033 bytes, checksum: 956c9f72e8d640ab46d22d65e3060e1b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-03-19 / The distance education (EAD) is an old method of teaching that is renewed with new information and communications technologies (ICTs). The present moment is promising for the development of research in this field since the growth of this mode of education in Brazil. Brazilian Universities (public, private, community and religious) has invested in projects in distance education; realizes that the models used in lacking precision in the settings of the functions performed by various actors in the EAD. For this reason, the work tutorial is searched with the aim of unveiling the relations between the formation of the subject and the role of the teacher mentor, considering the Institutional Educational Project and the educational project of the distance courses as well as its purposes on the anthropological concept (man), the knowledge concept and political concept (political and social relations). The assumptions that claimed the poll found a mentoring as: mediator in the process of construction and development of knowledge of the subject and as one of the team responsible for the articulation of ODL in relations with the board of faculty of the Methodist University of Sao Paulo. The text then is the result of the desire to support the development of this form of education in Brazil.(AU) / A educação a distância (EAD) é uma modalidade de ensino antiga que se renova com as novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação (NTIC). O momento presente é promissor para o desenvolvimento de pesquisas neste âmbito, visto o crescimento desta modalidade de ensino no Brasil. Universidades brasileiras (públicas, privadas, comunitárias e confessionais) têm investido em projetos de educação a distância; percebe-se que os modelos utilizados carecem precisão na configuração das funções exercidas pelos vários atores presentes na EAD. Por esta razão, o trabalho tutorial é pe squisado tendo como objetivo o desvelar das relações entre a formação do sujeito e o papel do professor tutor, considerando o Projeto Pedagógico Institucional e o projeto pedagógico dos cursos a distância, bem como suas proposituras sobre a concepção antropológica (homem), a concepção gnosiológica (conhecimento) e a concepção política (relações político-sociais). As hipóteses que sustentaram a pesquisa consideraram a tutoria como: mediadora no processo de construção do conhecimento e desenvolvimento do sujeito e como uma das responsáveis pela articulação da equipe de EAD, nas relações com o corpo discente, da Universidade Metodista de São Paulo. O texto, a seguir, é fruto do desejo de corroborar com o desenvolvimento desta modalidade de ensino no Brasil.(AU)

Submitted by Mario BC (mario@bc.ufrpe.br) on 2016-07-26T13:50:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Michelle dos Santos Moraes.pdf: 3538823 bytes, checksum: 592bbd44b5bab91a3db5b35d6c616fb5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-26T13:50:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Michelle dos Santos Moraes.pdf: 3538823 bytes, checksum: 592bbd44b5bab91a3db5b35d6c616fb5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-04-07 / This work is based on a survey about continuing training of tutors to work in distance education. The objective of the study is to investigate a proposal of personalized learning system with aspects of mobility and context awareness to this professional style. The research is guided by current theoretical frameworks that directly contribute to the idealization of the proposed system. Thus, the importance of this research is based on the use of personalization areas (Personal Learning Enviroment - PLE), mobility (m-learning) and user's and environment’s recognition (context awareness), which are said to be innovative in the field of education, and to create better use of time opportunities for the user in training. The participants involved in this study were chosen because of their experience with distance education and also because of their lack of time for training courses. It is a qualitative-quantitative action research - which enabled the analysis of the quality of the proposed system based on the percentage of evaluation and acceptance. It is conducted in four stages: theorical research; planning and development of the system; application of the system with the users and assessment of the feasibility of this system to support learning. Data collection is carried out through electronic questionnaires with questions related to the quality of the system, in order to answer the research question of this study. The collected results indicate positive contributions in innovation of mobile applications to promote education, presenting a viable model of adaptive course with context awareness characteristics, including services that offer media to study and an adaptive environment and a self-assessment tool. / Este trabalho é baseado em uma pesquisa sobre formação continuada de Tutores para atuarem na educação a distância, onde objetiva-se investigar sobre uma proposta de sistema de aprendizagem personalizado, contemplando aspectos de mobilidade e sensibilidade ao contexto para este perfil de profissional. Está pautado em referenciais teóricos atuais que colaboram de forma direta na idealização do sistema proposto. Desta forma, a importância desta pesquisa está baseada na utilização das áreas da personalização (Personal Learning Enviroment – PLE), mobilidade (m-learning) e reconhecimento do usuário e do meio (Sensibilidade ao Contexto), que são ditas como inovadoras no âmbito da educação, e podem oportunizar maior aproveitamento do tempo de um usuário em treinamento. Os sujeitos envolvidos nesta pesquisa foram escolhidos devido às suas experiências com a EAD e por terem o perfil do usuário cujo tempo para cursos de aperfeiçoamento é escasso. Caracterizada como pesquisa-ação quali – quantitativa a qual possibilitou a análise da qualidade do sistema proposto alicerçado no percentual de avaliação e aceitação do mesmo, é realizada em quatro etapas: pesquisa bibliográfica; planejamento e desenvolvimento do ambiente; aplicação do mesmo junto aos pesquisados e avaliação da viabilidade deste no auxílio da aprendizagem. A coleta de dados é realizada por meio de questionários eletrônicos aplicados com perguntas referentes a qualidade do sistema, a fim de responder a questão de investigação desta pesquisa. Os resultados alcançados apontam contribuições positivas na inovação das aplicações móveis destinadas a promover a educação, apresentando um modelo viável de curso adaptável e com características de sensibilidade ao contexto abrangendo serviços que ofertam mídias para estudo, ambiente possível de ser personalizável e ferramenta de autoavaliação.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T15:53:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo1935_1.pdf: 2791446 bytes, checksum: d98ec8da0e9d80f532bfb846c533f535 (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / A maioria dos estudos sobre Educação a Distância direciona sua atenção para o papel do aluno. O que está correto, pois atender às necessidades do aluno deve ser o objetivo principal do processo ensino-aprendizagem. No entanto, a crescente utilização de cursos a distância por adultos muitos desses alunos com idade, experiência profissional e postura diferente do aluno mais jovem traz à tona a necessidade de rever algumas práticas utilizadas na condução dos referidos cursos. Por outro lado, o tutor por ser um dos atores principais no processo ensino-aprendizagem a distância e devido a sua interação com os alunos é diretamente impactado por essa mudança. Para se adequar a esse cenário diferente, o tutor tende a adotar outra postura. Desta forma, o objetivo deste trabalho é identificar um conjunto de práticas do tutor em cursos de educação a distância para adultos. A partir da identificação de tais práticas, deseja-se elicitar requisitos para ambientes virtuais de ensino. O intuito é equipar tais sistemas, para que forneçam um melhor suporte ao tutor e, por extensão, aos alunos. Utilizou-se o paradigma qualitativo para a realização deste estudo. Entrevistas narrativas foram realizadas com os tutores, entrevistas semiestruturadas foram conduzidas com alunos, além da realização de uma análise dos registros de fóruns de discussão, nos quais os participantes tomaram parte. Realizou-se também uma análise de competidores com três dos principais ambientes virtuais de ensino da atualidade. O objetivo foi identificar as potencialidades e fraquezas dos referidos ambientes no suporte ao tutor e ao aluno adulto

Intelligent tutors are becoming more popular with the increased use of computersand hand held devices in the education sphere. An area of research isinvestigating how machine learning can be used to improve the precision andfeedback of the tutor. This thesis compares machine learning clustering algorithmswith various distance functions in an attempt to cluster together codesnapshots of students solving a programming task. It investigates whethera general non-problem specific implementation of a distance function canbe used to identify when a student is stuck solving an assignment. Themachine learning algorithms compared are k-medoids, the randomly initializedalgorithm that produces a pre-defined number of clusters and affinitypropagation, a two phase algorithm with dynamic cluster sizes. Distancefunctions tried are based on the Bag of Words approach, lower level APIcalls and a problem specific distance function. This thesis could not find agood algorithm to achieve the sought goal, and lists a number of possibleerror sources linked to the data, preprocessing and algorithm. The methodologyis promising but requires a controlled environment at every level toassure data quality does not detract from the analysis in later stages.

This study investigated the various methods involved in creating an intelligent tutor for the University of Central Florida Infinity Web Applets (UCF Infinity Web Applets). After conducting research into various methods, two major methods emerged and they are: solving the problem for the student and helping the student when they become stymied and unable to solve the problem. A storyboard was created to show the interactions of the student and system along with a list of features that were desired to be included in the tutoring system. From the storyboard and list of features, an architecture was created to handle all of the interactions and features. After the initial architecture was designed, the development of the actual system was started. The architecture underwent a multitude of changes to conclude with a working system, EINO. The final architecture of EINO incorporated a case based reasoning system to perform pattern recognition on the student's input into the UCF Infinity Web Applets. The interface that the student interacts with was created using flash. EINO was implemented in three of the labs from the UCF Infinity Web Applets. A series of tests were performed on the EINO tutoring system to prove that the system could actually perform each and every one of the features listed initially. The final test was a simulation of how the EINO would perform under a set of given cases. Test subjects with the same educational level as the target group were chosen to spend an unlimited time using each of the three labs. Each of the test subjects filled out a survey on every lab to determine if the EINO system produced a helpful output.

General Chemistry II is a common chemistry course that is required for professional school such as, medical, dental, optometry schooling. Considering that it historically has a high drop, fail, withdrawal rate, it is surprising that less than 10% of students in chemistry II attend tutoring at the Student Academic Resource Center (SARC). In this tutoring center, sessions are led by students who have excelled previously in that specific course. The objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between student motivation and attendance in SARC peer tutoring sessions for chemistry II. More precisely, to better understand the connection between those who have a motivation of getting a good grade and learning the material and those who attend tutoring. In order to gain insight on a student’s motivation to attend sessions in SARC, a survey was distributed to those taking the class currently. Two modes were used including paper survey and online. Findings from this investigation will lead to suggestions to increase SARC chemistry tutoring attendance which could positively impact the success of STEM students on UCF's campus.

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In 1984, Stephen North said of writing center research: "There is not a single published study of what happens in writing center tutorials" (433). In the eighteen years since then, writing center practitioners and scholars have produced impressive research and development work, but few empirical studies have added to the sub-field of computer-mediated writing conferencing, though there are more than 300 online writing labs, OWLs, listed on the National Writing Centers Association website. This study started with the understanding that there are significant behavior, communication, and tutoring technique differences between online tutoring and face-to-face tutoring that can affect tutor training, which the research from the fields of computers and composition, computer-mediated communication, and writing centers shows. The purpose of this research was to describe the nature of the online writing lab tutorial. Qualitative analysis was used to prepare a full picture of the online tutoring sessions of three tutors over a six-week period in the Radford University Writing Center. The researcher took the role of participant/observer/interviewer for the sessions. Interviews and talk during conferences with the tutors, were transcribed, coded and contextualized, adding to the understanding of the tutor?s online work. Using a functional analysis model created by Gere and Abbott (1985) and applied by Hewett (1999), transcripts of the tutorial conferences were divided by linguistic idea units and coded according to function, intent, and consciousness. Additionally, a coding scheme was created out of the interview transcripts and from the tutorial responses of this study that focused on the technical and social aspects of the online conferencing, which helped objectify the nature of computer-mediated conference. / Ph. D.