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The Effects of Cognitive Disequilibrium on Question Asking While Interacting with AutoTutor. Jeremiah Sullins, Art Graesser, Katarina Tran, Savannah Ewing, & Natasha Velaga June 18, 2010. Outline. The Benefits and Problems with Question Generation
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The Effects of Cognitive Disequilibrium on Question Asking While Interacting with AutoTutor Jeremiah Sullins, Art Graesser, Katarina Tran, Savannah Ewing, & Natasha Velaga June 18, 2010
Outline • The Benefits and Problems with Question Generation • The Relationship Between Cognitive Disequilibrium and Question Generation • A Brief Summary of Emotions • Current Study
Question Generation • Believed to play a crucial role in: • Comprehension (Collins, Brown, & Larkin, 1980; Graesser, Singer, & Trabasso, 1994) • Reasoning (Graesser, Baggett, & Williams, 1996; Sternberg, 1987) • Memory (Rosenshine, Meister, & Chapman, 1996)
Question Generation • Unfortunately, students are inefficient at monitoring their own knowledge deficits and their question generation is infrequent and unsophisticated (Baker, 1979; Dillon, 1988; Graesser & Person, 1994; Van der Meji, 1988) • Graesser & Person (1994) revealed that in a typical setting, such as a classroom a students asks less than one question/hour!
Questions in an ITS • Typed AutoTutor = 1200 (20 questions) • Spoken AutoTutor = 1100 (24 questions) • Physics Typed AutoTutor = 5700 (27 questions) • Grand Total = 8000 student turns
Question Generation • Why!? • Three possible obstacles that hinder question asking • Students have difficulty identifying their own knowledge deficits unless they have high amounts of domain knowledge • Social editing • Insufficient training/modeling • However, there is reason to be optimistic!
Cognitive Disequilibrium • Literature suggests that under the correct circumstances the rate of student questioning can significantly increase (Otero & Graesser, 2001; Graesser & McMahen, 1993; Wisher & Graesser, 2005) • Cognitive disequilibrium is a situation in which learners encounter obstacles to goals, which places them in a state of inquiry until equilibrium is restored
Cognitive Disequilibrium • Available research does suggest that providing anomalous information is an efficient way of inducing cognitive disequilibrium • Graesser, Lu, Olde, Cooper-Pye and Whitten (2005) • Graesser and McMahen (1993) • Graesser and Olde (2003) • Otero and Graesser (2001)
Facial Action Coding System • (Ekman, 2003; Ekman & Friesen, 1978) • Each Action Unit (AU) represents muscular activity which produces a change in facial appearance Detection of Ekman’s Facial Actions AU 1 – Inner Brow Raise AU 7 –Lid Tightener Neutral
Emotion Detection • Confusion = action units 4 (brow lowerer) & 7 (lid tightner) • McDaniel, D’Mello, King, Chipman, Tapp, and Graesser, 2007 • Frustration = action units 1 (inner brow raiser), action unit 2 (outer brow raiser), & action unit 14 (Dimpler) • Craig, Graesser, Sullins, & Gholson, 2004
Confusion and Learning • Confusion can be a crucial component in learning when interacting with AutoTutor • Numerous studies showing a positive correlation between learning and confusion (Graesser, McDaniel, Chipman, Witherspoon, D’Mello, & Gholson, 2006; Graesser, D’Mello, Chipman, King, & McDaniel, 2007; Craig et al., 2004; Graesser et al., 2008; Lehman, D'Mello, & Person, 2010)
Current Study • Designed to explore question generation when students are placed in a state of cognitive disequilibrium • Interested in the role played by a confederate and any potential effect of this role on the frequency and quality of questions asked by participants. • Interested in investigating the temporal relation between confusion (i.e., action units 4 & 7) and question asking.
AutoTutor • A fully automated tutor that holds conversations with learners in natural language and simulates the dialogue moves of expert human tutors (Graesser, Chipman, & Haynes, 2005)
Methods • Participants consisted of 48 (24 per condition) undergraduate students from the University of Memphis
Methods (Procedure) • Three phases in the experiment • pretest phase • training phase • posttest phase
Pretest Phase • Multiple Choice Pretest (Counterbalanced with posttest) • Big Five Personality Test • Openness • Conscientiousness • Extraversion • Agreeableness • Neuroticism
Training Phase • Randomly assigned to one of two different versions of AutoTutor • Hardware, Operating System, and Internet • Two 30 minute sessions (3rd subtopic was used as control)
Modified AutoTutor • Cognitive Disequilibrium AutoTutor • Percentage of incorrect feedback • Percentage of false information (hints & prompts) • AutoTutor: What kind of storage is ram? • Student : ram is short term storage • AutoTutor: No, ram is only used to store things long-term
Posttest Phase • Agent persona questionnaire • Multiple choice posttest • Motivated Strategies Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, &McKeachie, 1992) • Confederate perception questionnaire
Raw Number of Questions Asked • Marginally significant difference in the raw number of questions asked; t (45) = 1.951, p = .057
Learning Gains • No significant difference in learning
Questions Asked I found the confederate to be believable I found the confederate to be attractive I found the confederate to be likeable I felt that the confederate was agreeable I felt that the confederate was able to answer my questions during the study I felt that the confederate was knowledgeable Questions Asked 1 .423** .003 .182 .221 .256* .082 .328** .024 .253* .086 .128 .391 Confederate Perception Questionnaire ** Significant * Marginally Significant
Agent Persona Questionnaire • AutoTutor’s emotions were natural (r = .329, p < .05) • No other significant correlations
Intrinsic Goal Orientation Task Value Control of Learning Beliefs Self Efficacy for Learning and Performance Elaboration Strategies Effort Regulation Questions Asked .373 .010 .389 .007 .288 .050 .317 .030 .318 .029 .306 .036 Motivated Strategies Learning Questionnaire
Future Analysis • Interested in examining confusion as a function of time • For example, do questions occur before cognitive disequilibrium, at the moment of cognitive disequilibrium, or after cognitive disequilibrium • Quality of questions • Code questions using Graesser & Person (1994) taxonomy (e.g., Deep versus Shallow)
Questions??? (This sums up pretty accurately how I have felt lately)