Addressing the Testing Challenge with a Web-Based E-Assessment

System that Tutors as it Assesses Mingyu Feng, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)

Neil T. Heffernan, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)Kenneth R. Koedinger, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

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The “ASSISTment” System An e-assessment and e-learning system

that does both ASSISTing of students and assessMENT (movie) www.assistment.org Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System

“MCAS”

Web-based system built on Common Tutoring Object Platform (CTOP) [1]

[1] Nuzzo-Jones., G. Macasek M.A., Walonoski, J., Rasmussen K. P., Heffernan, N.T., Common Tutor Object Platform, an e-Learning Software Development Strategy, WPI technical report. WPI-CS-TR-06-08.

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ASSISTment We break multi-step problems

into “scaffolding questions” “Hint Messages”: given on

demand that give hints about what step to do next

“Buggy Message”: a context sensitive feedback message

“Knowledge Components”: Skills, Strategies, concepts The state reports to teachers on

5 areas We seek to report on 100

knowledge components How does a student work with

the ASSISTment? (movie)

(Demo/movie)The original question

a. Congruenceb. Perimeterc. Equation-Solving

The 1st scaffolding question

Congruence

The 2nd scaffolding question

Perimeter

A buggy message

A hint message

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Goal Help student Learning (this paper’s goal [2][3]) Assess students’ performance and present

results to teachers. (this work focused on) Online “Grade book” report

[2] Razzaq, L., Feng, M., Nuzzo-Jones, G., Heffernan, N.T., Koedinger, K. R., Junker, B., Ritter, S., Knight, A., Aniszczyk, C., Choksey, S., Livak, T., Mercado, E., Turner, T.E., Upalekar. R, Walonoski, J.A., Macasek. M.A., Rasmussen, K.P. (2005). The Assistment Project: Blending Assessment and Assisting. In C.K. Looi, G. McCalla, B. Bredeweg, & J. Breuker (Eds.) Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence In Education, 555-562. Amsterdam: ISO Press.

[3] Razzaq, L., Heffernan, N.T. (in press). Scaffolding vs. hints in the Assistment System. In Ikeda, Ashley & Chan (Eds.). Proceedings of the Eight International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Springer-Verlag: Berlin. pp. 635-644. 2006.

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Outline for the talk

Part I: Using Part II: Longitudinal Models tracking student

learning over time Able to tell which schools provide the most

learning to students Can we tell teachers which skills are being

learned

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Data Source 600+ students of two middle schools Used the ASSISTment system every

other week from Sep. 2004 to June 2005 Real MCAS score

test taken in May 2005 2 paper and pencil based tests,

administered in Sep. 2004 and March 2005.

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Part I: Using Dynamic Measures Research Questions

Can we do a more accurate job of predicting student's MCAS score using the online assistance information (concerning time, performance on scaffoldings, #attempt, #hint)?

Can we do a better job predicting MCAS in this online assessment system than the tradition paper and pencil test does?

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Part I: Using Dynamic Measures Approach

Run forward stepwise linear regression to train up regression models using different independent variables

Result

5.44183-423.6635Model II plus all other online

measuresModel III

6.21108-343.5671The single online static metric of

percent correct on original questions

Model II

6.20881-358.5882Paper practice results onlyModel I

MAD* BIC+R2# VariablesEntered

Independent Variable’sModel

+ BIC: Bayesian Information Criterion * MAD: Mean Absolute Deviance

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Part I: Using Dynamic Measures

Order Variables Coeff. Std. Coeff.

1 PERCENT_CORRECT 32.976 .425

2 AVG_ATTEMPT -11.209 -.199

3 AVG_ITEM_TIME -.037 -.143

4 AVG_HINT_REQUEST -2.420 -.121

5 ORIGINAL_PERCENT_CORRECT 12.618 1.66

Model III

What do we see from Model III? the more hint, attempt, time a student need to solve

a problem, the worse his predicted score would be

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Part II: Track Learning Longitudinally

What if we take time into consideration?

Note: Different from Razzaq, Feng et. al which looks at student performance gain over learning opportunity pairs within the ASSISTment system, here “learning” includes students learning in class too.

Recall the problems of prediction in Grade book Only based on static measure (discussed in part I) Time ignored part II

Research Questions Can our system detect performance improving over time? Can we tell the difference on learning rate of students

from different schools? Teacher? (Who cares?) Do students show difference on learning different skills?

Approach -- longitudinal data analysis

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Longitudinal Data Analysis What do we get from a longitudinal model?

Average population trajectory for the specified group Trajectory indicated by two parameters

intercept: slope: The average estimated score for a group at time j is

One trajectory for every single student Each student got two parameters to vary from the group

average Intercept: slope:

The estimated score for student i at time j is

Students’ initial knowledge is indicated by

intercept, while slope shows the learning rate

jj TIME*1000

jiiij TIME*)()( 110000

00 10

i000 i110

[4] Singer, J. D. & Willett, J. B. (2003). Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis: Modeling Change and Occurrence. Oxford University Press, New York.

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17 Student from one class % Correct (Y-Axis) over a given month (X Axis)

Table 2. Regression Models

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Part II: Track Learning Longitudinally

Unconditional growth model(Model B, TIME)

Unconditional means model(Model A, no predictor)

BIC = 31712 #param = 3

BIC = 31628 #param = 6

Model DTIME + SCHOOL

BIC = 31616 #param = 8

Model ETIME + TEACHER

BIC = 31672 #param = 20

Model FTIME + CLASS

BIC = 31668 #param = 70

Diff = 12

Diff = 84

Result Unconditional model (model A) : no predictors Growth model (model B)

estimated initial average PredictedScore = 18 estimated average monthly learning rate = 1.29 Observation : students were learning over time

Add in school/teacher/class (model D/E/F) Model D shows statistical significant

advantage as measured by BIC Observation: students from different

schools differ on both incoming knowledge and learning rate

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Part II: Track Learning Longitudinally The last question

Can we detect difference on learning rate of different skills?

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Growth of 5 Skills over Time for One Student

01020304050607080

Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb March

Time

Per

cen

t C

orr

ect Geometry

Algebra

Measurement

Data Analysis

Number Sence

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Growth of 5 Skills over Time for One Student

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb March

Time

Pe

rce

nt

Co

rre

ct

Geometry

Algebra

Measurement

Data Analysis

Number Sence

Linear (Geometry)

Linear (Data Analysis)

Linear (Algebra)

Linear (Measurement)

Linear (Number Sence)

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Part II: Track Learning Longitudinally The last question

Can we detect difference on learning rate of different skills?

Yes we can! In this paper we showed that we can the model with 5 skills to do a more accurate prediction of their own data.

Even more recent studies we have down have shown even finer grain model (98 skills) are better at non-only predicting our online data, but predicting the students test scores.

[7] Pardos, Z. A., Heffernan, N. T., Anderson, B. & Heffernan, C. (in press). Using Fine-Grained Skill Models to Fit Student Performance with Bayesian Networks. Workshop in Educational Data Mining held at the Eight International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Taiwan. 2006. [8] Feng, M., Heffernan, N., Mani, M., & Heffernan C. (in press). Using Mixed-Effects Modeling to Compare Different Grain-Sized Skill Models. AAAI'06 Workshop on Educational Data Mining, Boston, 2006.

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Large Scale : ASSISTment project ASSISTments are tagged with skills

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Large Scale : ASSISTment project Are the skill/knowledge components mapping any good? Teachers get reports that they think are credible and

useful. [6]

[6] Feng, M., Heffernan, N.T. (in press). Informing Teachers Live about Student Learning: Reporting in the Assistment System. To be published in Technology, Instruction, Cognition, and Learning Journal Vol. 3. Old City Publishing, Philadelphia, PA. 2006.[7] Pardos, Z. A., Heffernan, N. T., Anderson, B. & Heffernan, C. (in press). Using Fine-Grained Skill Models to Fit Student Performance with Bayesian Networks. Workshop in Educational Data Mining held at the Eight International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Taiwan. 2006. [8] Feng, M., Heffernan, N., Mani, M., & Heffernan C. (in press). Using Mixed-Effects Modeling to Compare Different Grain-Sized Skill Models. AAAI'06 Workshop on Educational Data Mining, Boston, 2006.

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Large Scale : ASSISTment project We built 300 ASSISTments provided ~8

hours of content using the Builder [5]

[5] Heffernan N.T., Turner T.E., Lourenco A.L.N., Macasek M.A., Nuzzo-Jones G., Koedinger K.R., The ASSISTment builder: Towards an Analysis of Cost Effectiveness of ITS creation, Accepted by FLAIRS2006, Florida, USA (2006).

Are the content we created good at producing learning? Do students learn from these? [2]

Good enough that its used by 1,500 8th graders in Worcester, every two weeks as part of their math class. (2nd year)

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Large Scale : ASSISTment project

Other work Using Hints and Attempts and Time Can detect how is “gaming” and prevent it Machine learning of user models

[9] Walonoski, J., Heffernan, N.T. (accepted). Detection and Analysis of Off-Task Gaming Behavior in Intelligent Tutoring Systems. In Ikeda, Ashley & Chan (Eds.). Proceedings of the Eight International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Springer-Verlag: Berlin. pp. 382-391. 2006

[10] Walonoski, J., Heffernan, N. T. (accepted) Prevention of Off-Task Gaming Behavior in Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Proceedings of the Eight International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems.

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Conclusion Our online assessment system did a better

job of predicting student knowledge by being able to take into consideration how much tutoring assistance was needed.

Promising evidence was found that the online system was able to track students’ learning during a year well.

We found that the system could reliably track students’ learning of individual skills.

Leena RAZZAQ, Mingyu FENG, Goss NUZZO-JONES, Neil T. HEFFERNAN,

Kenneth KOEDINGER+, Brian JUNKER+, Steven RITTER, Andrea KNIGHT+,

Edwin MERCADO*, Terrence E. TURNER, Ruta UPALEKAR, Jason A. WALONOSKI

Michael A. MACASEK, Christopher ANISZCZYK, Sanket CHOKSEY, Tom LIVAK, Kai RASMUSSEN

Some of the ASSISTMENT TEAM

* This research was made possible by the US Dept of Education, Institute of Education Science, "Effective Mathematics Education Research" program grant #R305K03140, the Office of Naval Research grant # N00014-03-1-0221, NSF CAREER award to Neil Heffernan, and the Spencer Foundation. Authors Razzaq and Mercado were funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0231773. All the opinions in this article are those of the authors, and not those of any of the funders.

Carnegie Learning

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Future work Predict Student State Test Scores

Regression + longitudinal analysis [9] Incorporate finer grained cognitive models Item level prediction [8]

Apply the models in current reporting system

[9] Feng, M., Heffernan, N.T., & Koedinger, K.R. (in press). Predicting state test scores better with intelligent tutoring systems: developing metrics to measure assistance required. In Ikeda, Ashley & Chan (Eds.). Proceedings of the Eight International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Springer-Verlag: Berlin. pp. 31-40. 2006.[8] Feng, M., Heffernan, N., Mani, M., & Heffernan C. (2006, accepted). Using Mixed-Effects Modeling to Compare Different Grain-Sized Skill Models. AAAI'06 Workshop on Educational Data Mining, Boston, 2006.