Purpose: This article focuses on rarely explored organizational practice of teaching research in China's private tutoring industry. Taking a large private tutoring institution as an example, the article examines how private tutoring institutions understand and engage in educational explorations of standardization and informatization processes.…

Adaptive learning has become a dominant theme in settings ranging from academic laboratories to commercial education. Despite tens of millions of dollars invested by governments, universities, the private sector and companies, however, progress has been both costly and limited. No established initiative has attempted to model the processes human…

Speaking in Chinese is problematic for all learners, particularly for beginners and more so during online interaction. Despite the fact that interaction has been identified as crucial for the development of speaking skills, it can be hindered by students' lack of language competence or their anxiety. Teacher-centred practices in tutorials can…

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) have a long history, almost as long as the Structural Learning Theory (initially in Scandura, 1971). Although well-funded for many years, neither ITS nor contemporary successors based on BIG DATA (e.g., Knewton) come close to modeling the processes used by good human tutors. AuthorIT & TutorIT rest on a…

This study examines the differential impact of tutor labeling vs. non-labeling approaches on the performance; motivation beliefs; and cognitive, social, and teaching presence of low-achieving students. Two interactive tutoring strategy patterns are investigated based on the taxonomical e-moderating model of Salmon. In addition, the tutees' online…

The prevalence of plagiarism, cheating, and other acts of academic dishonesty may be as high as 80% in populations of high school and post-secondary students. Various educational interventions have been developed and implemented in an effort to educate students about academic integrity and to prevent academic misconduct. We reviewed the…

This study attempted to determine the influence of prior knowledge in mathematics of students on learner-interface interactions in a learning-by-teaching intelligent tutoring system. One hundred thirty-nine high school students answered a pretest (i.e., the prior knowledge in mathematics) and a posttest. In between the pretest and posttest, they…

We illustrate a very recent research study that demonstrates the value of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as vehicles for research. We describe the development of the Indiana University Plagiarism Tutorials and Tests (IPTAT). Our new design has been guided by "First Principles of Instruction": authentic problems, activation,…

The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science organized by Code.org, a non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science. This study investigated the impact of the Hour of Code on students' attitudes towards computer programming and their knowledge of programming. A sample of undergraduate students from two…

Students in an undergraduate psychology course on Learning and Cognition used SKO (formerly AutoTutor Lite), an Intelligent Tutoring System, to create interactive lessons in which a pedagogic agent (animated avatar) engages users in a tutorial dialogue. After briefly describing the technology and underlying psychological theory, data from an…

This work proposes the definition of an Adaptive Conversation-based Learning System (ACLS) able to foster computer-mediated tutorial dialogues at the workplace in order to increase the probability to generate meaningful learning during conversations. ACLS provides a virtual assistant selecting the best partner to involve in the conversation and…

Do students learn to model OR/MS problems better by using computer-based interactive tutorials and, if so, does increased interactivity in the tutorials lead to better learning? In order to determine the effect of different levels of interactivity on student learning, we used screen capture technology to design interactive support materials for…

It is often assumed that engaging in a one-on-one dialogue with a tutor is more effective than listening to a lecture or reading a text. Although earlier experiments have not always supported this hypothesis, this may be due in part to allowing the tutors to cover different content than the noninteractive instruction. In 7 experiments, we tested…

Interpreting information regarding health risks, crime statistics, and government polls requires some ability to use and interpret probabilities. Studies have shown that even after training or coursework in probability and statistics, people still have many difficulties solving probability problems. The thesis of this document is that helping…

Effectively targeting a heterogeneous student population is a common challenge in academic courses. Most traditional learning material targets the "average student," and is suboptimal for students who lack certain prior knowledge, or students who have already attained some of the course objectives. Student-activating learning material supports…