Assertions significantly increase unsolicited hint usage (justification and needed rates) over Messages for students regardless of prior proficiency¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causalr2·q3
Currency · newest study 2020 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Design limits · Mehak Maniktala 2020: the intervention came bundled with another change (read from the study by two models, 2026-10-27)
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i? Students in the Assertions condition justified (HJR) and needed (HNR) a significantly higher proportion of unsolicited hints than students in the Messages condition, with no significant interaction with prior proficiency. → Mehak Maniktala 2020
Evidence¶
Mehak Maniktala 2020¶
Mehak Maniktala, Christa Cody, Tiffany Barnes, Min Chi. (2020). Avoiding Help Avoidance: Using Interface Design Changes to Promote Unsolicited Hint Usage in an Intelligent Tutor. https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.13371
q3 · i? · causal · r2
Controlled study in the Deep Thought logic tutor with 100 students (57 Assertions, 43 Messages) after stratified random assignment. A two-way Aligned Ranks Transformation ANOVA found main effects of Condition on HJR (F(1,100) = 191.10, p < 0.001) and HNR (F(1,100) = 62.30, p < 0.001); Table 1 reports HJR 0.93 vs 0.63 and HNR 0.82 vs 0.62. "used a significantly higher proportion of unsolicited hints" summarises the contrast; no effect size is printed.
"As we hypothesized, the Assertions groups used a significantly higher proportion of unsolicited hints, both by justifying (HJR) and needing (HNR) more unsolicited hints than the Messages group, as shown in Table 1."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- The Assertions condition delivered significantly more unsolicited hints than the Messages condition during training — related
- Aptitude-treatment interaction: Assertions led low prior proficiency students to form significantly shorter posttest proofs than Messages — related
- For low prior proficiency students, unsolicited hint usage rates correlate negatively with posttest solution length, while hint frequency does not correlate — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
assertions-increase-unsolicited-hint-usage |
title |
Assertions significantly increase unsolicited hint usage (justification and needed rates) over Messages for students regardless of prior proficiency |
description |
Assertions significantly increase unsolicited hint usage (justification and needed rates) over Messages for students regardless of prior proficiency |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2020 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-27 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — mehak-maniktala-2020 |
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