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Meta-Affective Behaviour within an Intelligent Tutoring System for Mathematics

International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education volume 32, pages 174–195 (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

Many previous studies have highlighted the influence of learners’ affective states on learning with tutoring systems. However, the associations between learning and learners’ meta-affective capability are still unclear. The goal of this paper is to analyse meta-affective capability and its influence on learning outcomes as well as the dynamics of affect over time. Two criteria, awareness and self-regulation, were employed to define meta-affective capability. An exploratory study (n = 54) was conducted in which students at the secondary level were asked to interact with an intelligent tutoring system for mathematics and to self-report their affect during their interactions with the system. Pre-post learning outcomes were also measured. A post-hoc comparison of learning gains was made between more meta-affectively capable and less meta-affectively capable students. The results provide some empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that having meta-affective capability is positively associated with learning. Students not demonstrating meta-affective capability seemed to transition frequently from boredom to frustration (p = .0284) and from concentration to neutral (p = 0.0017). However, only a small percentage of the sample were classified as having meta-affective capability, indicating that it is important to scaffold students who are not meta-affectively capable.

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Notes

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Acknowledgements

The first author acknowledges the technical support of Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico in the production of this work. The second author gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Mexican Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT). The first author thanks Dr. Mario Martinez for suggesting the TraMineR library applied in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tecnológico de Monterrey, Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, 64849, Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico

    Genaro Rebolledo-Mendez

  2. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología - Ciencia Forense, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510, Ciudad de México, Mexico

    N. Sofia Huerta-Pacheco

  3. Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Ryan S. Baker

  4. Human-Centred Technology Research Group, Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK

    Benedict du Boulay

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  1. Genaro Rebolledo-Mendez
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  2. N. Sofia Huerta-Pacheco
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  3. Ryan S. Baker
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  4. Benedict du Boulay
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Correspondence to Genaro Rebolledo-Mendez.

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Rebolledo-Mendez, G., Huerta-Pacheco, N.S., Baker, R.S. et al. Meta-Affective Behaviour within an Intelligent Tutoring System for Mathematics. Int J Artif Intell Educ 32, 174–195 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-021-00247-1

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