Deliverable 4.4 - INSEAD CALT

CollaborationAtGentive IST-4-027529-STP - Attentive Agents for Collaborative LearnersThe Experimental group asked more questions of the expert than the Control group. Thissuggests greater interest, desire or ability to collaborate with the expert in their learning.We accept, then, the Experimental hypothesis, that the Experimental group collaboratedmore than the Control group.It is interesting to speculate on collaboration within the student pairs. Ideally, we wouldhave liked to audio-record a number of student pairs, transcribe their speech, translateinto English and analyse the dialogue. This would have allowed us to compare intra-paircollaboration across groups. However, this would have been a very resource-intensiveanalysis, and was not of sufficient priority to justify the large diversion of resourcesnecessary. The project partners are aware of the potential for this form of analysis, andintend to incorporate it into follow-on investigations.AttentionIt did not prove practical to install eye-tracking equipment in schools, or to video-recordand transcribe the interaction between individual student pairs and their computer.Therefore no systematic measurement of attention was possible. However, Attention is aprimary Key Indicator, which is to say that it is assumed that the AtGentive modificationswill affect the user’s attention directly; the other Key Indicators are considered to besecondary, in that they are affected by changes in attention. For example, if directing thelearner’s attention to salient details were to improve results on a test. It is therefore notessential to measure attention directly in order to assess the effectiveness of attentionsupport.Additional pedagogical AnalysisThe AtGentSchool pilot provides a rich composite of data which it was felt warrantedfurther analysis. In addition, Table 14 lists a number of findings that do not directly relateto the Key Indicators. The data were therefore explored and discussed further, taking apedagogical approach, with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the learningprocesses for the children who participated in the pilot study.Since this analysis is complex and additional to the AtGentive remit, the full descriptionappears in Appendix 14. In summary, the findings are discussed in terms of the effectsthat different types of system interventions had on the learning process. In particular,how self-regulation differed between the Control and Experimental groups, the supportprovided to the knowledge building process and the community effects on learning.4.2.3.3. ConclusionThe evidence indicates that the AtGentive modifications to the Ontdeknet softwaregenerated improvements in three of the Key Indicators: Performance, Satisfaction andCollaboration. Students accepted the agent and performed better as a result of itsassistance. This in turn suggests that the scenarios implemented were effective, and thatthe Conceptual Framework was successful in its generation of those scenarios.Student satisfaction was better where the agent acted as assistant, suggesting that aswell as being effective in promoting performance, assistance from the agent was likedand appreciated by the students. It is worthy of note that for those using the helpful agent(i.e. the Experimental group) the more able students were less confused during theearlier classes. This suggests that extra support for less able students is indicated forfuture use of such agents.Del 4.4: AtGentive Final Evaluation Report page 54