Publications

Type of Publication: Article in Collected Edition

Online Identification of Learner Problem Solving Strategies Using Pattern Recognition Methods

Author(s):
Kiesmüller, U.; Sossalla, S.; Brinda, T.; Riedhammer, K.
Editor:
Acm
Title of Anthology:
Proceedings of the 2010 ACM SIGCSE Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE 2010)
pages:
274-278
Publisher:
ACM Press
Location(s):
New York
Publication Date:
2010
ISBN:
978-1-60558-820-9
Language:
englisch
Citation:
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Abstract

Learning and programming environments used in computer science education give feedback to the users by system messages. These are triggered by programming errors and give only "technical" hints without regard to the learners' problem solving process. To adapt the messages not only to the factual but also to the procedural knowledge of the learners, their problem solving strategies have to be identified automatically and in process. This article describes a way to achieve this with the help of pattern recognition methods. Using data from a study with 65 learners aged 12 to 13 using a learning environment for programming, a classification system based on hidden Markov models is trained and integrated in the very same environment. We discuss findings in that data and the performance of the automatic online identification, and present first results using the developed software in class.

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