Understanding Student Interactions with Tutorial Dialogues in EER-Tutor

Abstract

Eye-movement tracking is a potential source of real-time adaptation in a learning environment. In order to have a more comprehensive a nd accurate picture of a user's interactions with a learning environment, we need to know which interface features he/she visually inspected, what strategies they used and what cognitive efforts they made to complete tasks. Such knowledge allows intelligen t systems to be proactive, rather than reactive, to users' actions. Tutorial dialogues is one of the strategies used by Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) and has been empirically shown to significantly improve learning. EER-Tutor is a constraint-based IT S used to teach conceptual database design. This paper presents the preliminary results of a project that investigates how students interact with the tutorial dialogues in EER-Tutor using both eye-gaze data and student-system interaction logs. Our findings indicate that advanced students are selective of the interface areas they visually focus on whereas novices waste time by paying attention to interface areas that are inappropriate for the task at hand. Novices are also unaware that they require help with the tutorial dialogues.