Students frequently used on-demand help ineffectively, and raw help frequency correlated negatively with learning gains¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2016 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Log data showed students clicked through hint levels rapidly to reach bottom-out hints, viewing most pre-bottom-out hint levels for under 1 second. → Aleven 2016 q2 i? Help frequency correlated negatively with pre/post-test learning gains, attributed partly to a selection effect. → Aleven 2016 (2)

Evidence¶

Aleven 2016¶

Aleven, V., Roll, I., McLaren, B. M., & Koedinger, K. R. (2016). Help Helps, But Only So Much: Research on Help Seeking with Intelligent Tutoring Systems. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-015-0089-1

q2 · i? · review · r3

An early educational data mining study of student log data from the Geometry Cognitive Tutor found rapid hint click-through; 68% of hint levels prior to the last were viewed for less than 1 second, indicating widespread help abuse.

"That is, they viewed 68 % of the hint levels prior to the last for less than 1 second (Aleven and Koedinger 2001), not enough time to read and understand the content."

Aleven 2016 (2)¶

Aleven, V., Roll, I., McLaren, B. M., & Koedinger, K. R. (2016). Help Helps, But Only So Much: Research on Help Seeking with Intelligent Tutoring Systems. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-015-0089-1

q2 · i? · review · r3

The same log-data study found raw frequency of on-demand help use correlated negatively with pre/post-test gains measured outside the tutor; the authors attribute this partly to a selection effect, since hint requests signal struggle.

"Further, we found a negative correlation between the frequency with which students used the tutor ’s on-demand help and their learning gains, the latter measured outside the tutor by pre-test/post-test scores."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Time spent with bottom-out hints correlates positively with learning, consistent with spontaneous self-explanation — reports the opposite
• Feedback on help seeking produced a lasting improvement in how deliberately students used on-demand help, even after feedback was removed — related