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Automating Hint Generation with Solution Space Path Construction

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Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 8474))

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Abstract

Developing intelligent tutoring systems from student solution data is a promising approach to facilitating more widespread application of tutors. In principle, tutor feedback can be generated by matching student solution attempts to stored intermediate solution states, and next-step hints can be generated by finding a path from a student’s current state to a correct solution state. However, exact matching of states and paths does not work for many domains, like programming, where the number of solution states and paths is too large to cover with data. It has previously been demonstrated that the state space can be substantially reduced using canonicalizing operations that abstract states. In this paper, we show how solution paths can be constructed from these abstract states that go beyond the paths directly observed in the data. We describe a domain-independent algorithm that can automate hint generation through use of these paths. Through path construction, less data is needed for more complete hint generation. We provide examples of hints generated by this algorithm in the domain of programming.

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References

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Rivers, K., Koedinger, K.R. (2014). Automating Hint Generation with Solution Space Path Construction. In: Trausan-Matu, S., Boyer, K.E., Crosby, M., Panourgia, K. (eds) Intelligent Tutoring Systems. ITS 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8474. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07221-0_41

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07221-0_41

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07220-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07221-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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