Even newer results (2002) show Ms. Lindquist leads to more learning as well
as motivational benefits
Click Here for this latest study. Converted
from Word-to-html version --- word
.doc version
What follows is a summary of Heffernan's dissertation results from 2001.
The dialogs Ms. Lindquist engages students in work!!
Study Design
We just completed a controlled study where we compared the
instruction Ms Lindquist provides with a traditional computer-aided approach.
Please note: These results are being prepared for publication
in a peer reviewed journal but we wanted to share them with the community of
users of Ms. Lindquist.
- Ms. Lindquist is able to carry on a running conversation, complete
with probing questions, positive and negative feedback, follow-up questions in
embedded sub-dialogs, and requests for explanation as to why something is
correct.
- Traditional Computer-Aided Instruction(CAI) simply told the
students the answer if the student got a question wrong. You can think of this
condition being analogous to a student doing homework with the answers in the
back of the book but no additional help.
Everything else was held the
same between the two conditions including the number of problems done.
Results
Students were given a 6 item post test after about 2 hours of
instruction. Students using Ms. Lindquist did better on the post test ( The
effect size of .8 was large and we had a p value of .2. We only had 20
students.).
Conclusion
This formative analysis showed that students benefitted from
the dialog that Ms. Lindquist engaged them in. Why is this the case? Well one
student who received the traditional computer aided instruction complained that
the the computer wasn't very helpful because "It just tells you the answer." Ms
Lindquist instead asked new questions of students to try to break the problems
down for them. These results show that the dialogs Ms. Lindquist engages
students in is effective in promoting student learning.
Future Work
We are continuing to improve Ms. Lindquist by adding more
and better tutorial strategies. Thanks to all the teachers who have
participated.
Back to The Ms. Lindquist Algebra
Tutoring Web Site.