Fostering equitable help-seeking for k-3 students in low income and rural contexts

Abstract

Adaptive Collaborative Learning Support (ACLS) systems improve collaboration and learning for students over individual work or collaboration with non-adaptive support. However, many ACLS systems are ill-suited for rural contexts where students often need multiple kinds of support to complete tasks, may speak languages unsupported by the system, and require more than pre-assigned tutor-tutee student pairs for more equitable learning. We designed an intervention that fosters more equitable help-seeking by automatically detecting student struggles and prompts them to seek help from specific peers that can help. We conducted a mixed-methods experimental study with 98 K-3 students in a rural village in Tanzania over a one-month period, evaluating how the system affects student interactions, system engagement, and student learning. Our intervention increased student interactions by almost 4 times compared to the control condition, increased domain knowledge interactions, and propelled students to engage in more cognitively challenging activities.