Modeling the Zone of Proximal Development with a Computational Approach

In this paper, we propose a computational approach to modeling the Zone of Proximal Development of students who learn using a natural-language tutoring system for physics. We employ a student model to predict students’ performance based on their prior knowledge and activity when using a dialogue tutor to practice with conceptual, reflection questions about high-school level physics. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of the “Grey Area”, the area in which the student model cannot predict with acceptable accuracy whether a student has mastered the knowledge components or skills present in a particular step.