Predictive Models of Student Learning

In this dissertation, several approaches I have taken to build upon the student learning model are described. There are two focuses of this dissertation. The first focus is on improving the accuracy with which future student knowledge and performance can be predicted by individualizing the model to each student. The second focus is to predict how different educational content and tutorial strategies will influence student learning. The two focuses are complimentary but are approached from slightly different directions. I have found that Bayesian Networks, based on belief propagation, are strong at achieving the goals of both focuses. In prediction, they excel at capturing the temporal nature of data produced where student knowledge is changing over time. This concept of state change over time is very difficult to capture with classical machine learning approaches. Interpretability is also hard to come by with classical machine learning approaches; however, it is one of the strengths of Bayesian models and aids in studying the direct influence of various factors on learning. The domain in which these models are being studied is the domain of computer tutoring systems, software which typically uses artificial intelligence to enhance computer based tutorial instruction. These systems are growing in relevance. At their best they have been shown to achieve the same educational gain as one on one human interaction. They have also received the attention of White House, which mentioned a tutor called ASSISTments in its National Educational Technology Plan. With the fast paced adoption of computer tutoring systems it is important to learn how to improve the educational effectiveness of these systems by making sense of the data that is being generated from them. The studies in this proposal use data from these educational systems which primarily teach topics of Geometry and Algebra but can be applied to any domain with clearly defined sub-skills and dichotomous student response data. One of the intended impacts of this work is for these knowledge modeling contributions to facilitate the move towards computer adaptive learning in much the same way that Item Response Theory models facilitated the move towards computer adaptive testing.