Building and evaluating an intelligent pedagogical agent to improve the effectiveness of an educational game

ABSTRACT

Electronic educational games can be highly entertaining, but studies have shown that they do not always trigger learning. To enhance the effectiveness of educational games, we propose intelligent pedagogical agents that can provide individualized instruction integrated with the entertaining nature of the games. In this paper, we describe one such agent, that we have developed for Prime Climb, an educational game on number factorization. The Prime Climb agent relies on a probabilistic student model to generate tailored interventions aimed at helping students learn number factorization through the game. After describing the functioning of the agent and the underlying student model, we report the results of an empirical study that we performed to test the agent's effectiveness.

REFERENCES

• 1: Vincent Aleven , Kenneth R. Koedinger, Limitations of Student Control: Do Students Know When They Need Help?, Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, p.292-303, June 19-23, 2000
• 2: Conati, C. and J. Fain Lehman. Toward a Model of Student Education in Microworlds. Proc. of the 15th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 1993, Boulder, CO, U.S.A.
• 3: Cristina Conati , Abigail Gertner , Kurt Vanlehn, Using Bayesian Networks to Manage Uncertainty in Student Modeling, User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, v.12 n.4, p.371-417, November 2002 [doi>10.1023/A:1021258506583]
• 4: Conati, C. and M. Klawe, Socially Intelligent Agents in Educational Games, in In Socially Intelligent Agents - Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots., K. Dautenhahn, A. Bond, D. Canamero D, and B. Edmonds, Editors, 2002, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• 5: Thomas Dean , Keiji Kanazawa, A model for reasoning about persistence and causation, Computational Intelligence, v.5 n.3, p.142-150, Aug. 1990 [doi>10.1111/j.1467-8640.1989.tb00324.x]
• 6: Johnson, W.L. and J. Rickel. Research in Animated Pedagogical Agents: Progress and Prospects for Training. Proc. of IUI 2001, International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, 2001, Santa Fe, NM, U.S.A.
• 7: Klawe, M. When Does The Use Of Computer Games And Other Interactive Multimedia Software Help Students Learn Mathematics? NCTM Standards 2000 Technology Conference, 1998, Arlington, VA, U.S.A.
• 8: Lester, J., S. Converse, B. Stone, S. Kahler, and T. Barlow . Animated Pedagogical Agents and Problem-Solving Effectiveness: A Large-Scale Empirical Evaluation. Proc. of the 8th World Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, 1997, Kobe, Japan.
• 9: James C. Lester , Brian A. Stone , Gary D. Stelling, Lifelike Pedagogical Agents for Mixed-initiative Problem Solving in Constructivist Learning Environments, User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, v.9 n.1-2, p.1-44, April 1999 [doi>10.1023/A:1008374607830]
• 10: Antonija Mitrovic , Pramuditha Suraweera, Evaluating an Animated Pedagogical Agent, Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, p.73-82, June 19-23, 2000
• 11: Josephine M. Randel , Barbara A. Morris , C. Douglas Wetzel , Betty V. Whitehill, The effectiveness of games for educational purposes: a review of recent research, Simulation and Gaming, v.23 n.3, p.261-276, Sept. 1992 [doi>10.1177/1046878192233001]
• 12: Schafer, R. and T. Weyrath. Assessing Temporally Variable User Properties With Dynamic Bayesian Networks. Proc. of the 6th Int. Conference on User Modeling, 1997, Chia Laguna, Italy.
• 13: Shute, V.J., A comparison of learning environments: All that glitters..., in Computers as Cognitive Tools, S. Lajoie, P. and S. Derry, Editors, 1993, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ.
• 14: Zhao, X., Adaptive Support for Student Learning in Educational Games, M.Sc. thesis. Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia, 2002, Vancouver, Canada.
• 15: Xiaoming Zhou , Cristina Conati, Inferring user goals from personality and behavior in a causal model of user affect, Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces, January 12-15, 2003, Miami, Florida, USA [doi>10.1145/604045.604078]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.1 Applications and Expert Systems
          Subjects: Games

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.3 Deduction and Theorem Proving
          Subjects: Uncertainty, "fuzzy," and probabilistic reasoning

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.1 Computer Uses in Education
          Subjects: Computer-managed instruction (CMI)

General Terms:
Experimentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
dynamic Bayesian networks, educational games, intelligent agents, user modeling