Transferring Teaching to Testing – an Unexplored Aspect of Teachable Agents

Björn Sjödén, Betty Tärning, Lena Pareto, Agneta Gulz

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingPaper in conference proceedingpeer-review

Abstract

The present study examined whether socio-motivational effects from working with a Teachable Agent (TA) might transfer from the formative learning phase to a summative test situation. Forty-nine students (9-10 years old) performed a digital pretest of math skills, then played a TA-based educational math game in school over a period of eight weeks. Thereafter, the students were divided into two groups, matched according to their pretest scores, and randomly assigned one of two posttest conditions: either with the TA present, or without the TA. Results showed that low-performers on the pretest improved significantly more on the posttest than did high-performers, but only when tested with the TA. We reason that low-performers might be more susceptible to a supportive social context – as provided by their TA – for performing well in a test situation.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAIED 2011 LNAI 6738
EditorsGautam Biswas, Susan Bull
PublisherSpringer
Pages337-344
Number of pages8
Publication statusPublished - 2011
EventThe 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education - Auckland, New Zealand
Duration: 2011 Jun 272011 Jul 2

Conference

ConferenceThe 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education
Country/TerritoryNew Zealand
CityAuckland
Period2011/06/272011/07/02

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Educational Sciences
  • Psychology (excluding Applied Psychology)

Free keywords

  • learning-by-teaching
  • teachable agent
  • assessment
  • transfer

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