Inferring learners’ knowledge from observed actions

Anna N. Rafferty, Michelle M. LaMar, Thomas L. Griffiths

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Teachers gain significant information about their students through close observation of classroom activities. By noting which actions a student takes to achieve particular goals, a teacher can often infer the knowledge possessed by the student and diagnose misconceptions. In this work, we develop a framework for automatically inferring a student’s underlying beliefs from a set of observed actions. This framework relies on modeling how student actions follow from beliefs about the effects of those actions. We demonstrate the practicality of this approach by modeling empirical student data from an educational game and validate its performance via a controlled lab experiment. In the educational game, inferences were consistent with conventional assessment measures; in the lab experiment, the model’s inferences reflect participants’ stated beliefs.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 5th International Conference on Educational Data Mining, EDM 2012
EditorsKalina Yacef, Osmar R. Zaiane, Arnon Hershkovitz, Michael Yudelson
Publisherwww.educationaldatamining.org
ISBN (Electronic)9781742102764
StatePublished - Jan 1 2012
Externally publishedYes
Event5th International Conference on Educational Data Mining, EDM 2012 - Chania, Greece
Duration: Jun 19 2012Jun 21 2012

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 5th International Conference on Educational Data Mining, EDM 2012

Conference

Conference5th International Conference on Educational Data Mining, EDM 2012
Country/TerritoryGreece
CityChania
Period6/19/126/21/12

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Information Systems
  • Computer Science Applications

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