Research on tutoring has shown that the student's interaction with the tutor determines the learning outcomes. In human tutoring, the responsibility of the interaction is shared between the tutor and the student. In the case of a computer coach such as the McGill Statistics Tutor, the control of the interaction is put entirely in the hands of the learners. Learners' ability to interact with the system productively therefore represents a critical aspect affecting the learning outcomes. This ability of help seeking (Nelson-LeGall, 1981) has not been well researched from a cognitive science point of view in the context of computer-supported learning (Aleven et al., 2003). The aims of the present work were to elaborate and test a cognitive model of help seeking and to examine the prevalence of help seeking in a problem-based computer-supported learning situation, as well as individual differences and the effect of the progression in a sequence of tasks with respect to help seeking. / Participants were 18 graduate students from a faculty of Education of a Canadian university. The seven-hour experiment involved working in pairs to solve a very challenging statistics problem for which students did not have sufficient background. A computer coach based on human tutoring, the McGill Statistics Tutor, was available to provide help with every aspect of the task. / Data consisted of two complementary sources. The main source was the dialogue between the participants as they worked on the statistics problem using the computer coach. The students' use of the computer coach and solutions to the tasks were also integrated into the database. / Data analysis consisted of statistical analyses using log-linear models. Conditional probability graphs were also constructed from the data. / The results were consistent with the help seeking model. Individual differences were found in terms of emphasis on certain help seeking activities. Effects of the progression in the sequence of tasks were also found. The quality of the solutions students elaborated corresponded to specific profiles of help seeking. The structure of help seeking episodes was established and corresponded to the model. These results have implications for the design of computer coaches and instructional situations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.85191 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Mercier, Julien, 1974- |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002208883, proquestno: AAINR12909, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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