Artificial Intelligence in Education

Abstract

Extended interactions with a pedagogical agent (PA) assisting students to enact cognitive and metacognitive self-regulated processes requires the system to adapt the types and frequency of scaffolding. We compared learners’ perception of PAs’ prompts with MetaTutor, a hypermedia adaptive learning environment, with 40 undergraduates randomly assigned to one of three condi- tions: non-adaptive prompting (NP), frequency-based adaptive prompting (FP) and frequency and quality-based adaptive prompting (FQP). Results indicate learners are unable to reliably perceive differences in the number of prompts re- ceived, though these differences are reflected in positive outcomes in terms of SRL processes enacted and learning gains, and negative outcomes in terms of self-reported satisfaction. Preliminary results indicated that more frequent, but adaptive prompting is an efficient scaffolding strategy, despite negatively im- pacting learners’ satisfaction.