Testing the Effects of Real-time Scaffolding of Science Inquiry Driven by Automated Performance Assessment

本项目探讨中学生如何在复杂领域进行科学探究。来自学习科学、科学教育、评估、统计学、计算机科学和教育数据挖掘的专业知识和方法被结合在一个工作计划中：(1)使用知识工程和数据挖掘来开发地球和生命科学探究的绩效评估方法；(2)使用这些性能算法触发一个教学代理，该代理将实时为学生提供个性化的脚手架；(3)研究了脚手架的作用。该项目建立在广泛的先前研究（包括几个nsf支持的项目）的基础上，对STEM学习进行模拟和评估。两个主要的研究问题试图解决由教学主体支撑的探究技能在多大程度上在同一主题内的任务之间转移，以及在同一领域内的跨主题。这个为期三年的项目将进行的主要活动包括：(1)为教学代理开发多种类型的支架；(2)与学生和老师进行试点测试和分析，以推动迭代改进；(3)开发（使用知识工程和数据挖掘算法）并验证指标，以评估(a)假设生成、(b)数据收集、(c)数据解释和(d)保证索赔的查询技能；(4)将评估指标与教学代理相结合；(5)数据收集和分析，以解决研究问题。数据收集将在马萨诸塞州的五所学校进行，比较通过教学代理（按主题随机分配到治疗条件的学生）接受询问支架的中学生和未接受询问支架的中学生。在项目结束时，日志数据将通过匹兹堡科学学习中心数据库免费提供给科学研究人员用于二次研究和教学目的。

This project addresses how middle school students conduct scientific inquiry in complex domains. Expertise and methods from the learning sciences, science education, assessment, statistics, computer science, and educational data mining are combined in a program of work that: (1) uses knowledge engineering and data mining to develop methods for performance assessment of inquiry in earth and life sciences; (2) uses these performance algorithms to trigger a pedagogical agent that will provide individualized scaffolding to students in real time; and (3) studies the effects of that scaffolding. This project builds on an extensive body of prior research (including several NSF-supported projects) on STEM learning with simulations and assessments of STEM learning. The two main research questions seek to address the extent to which inquiry skills scaffolded by the pedagogical agent transfer across tasks within the same topic, and across topics within the same domain. Key activities to be conducted over the course of the three-year project include: (1) developing multiple types of scaffolds for the pedagogical agent; (2) pilot testing and analysis with students and teachers to drive iterative improvement; (3) developing (using knowledge engineered and data mined algorithms) and validating metrics to assess the inquiry skills of (a) hypothesis generation, (b) data collection, (c) data interpretation, and (d) warranting claims; (4) integrating assessment metrics with the pedagogical agent; and (5) data collection and analysis to address the research questions. Data collection will take place in five Massachusetts schools, comparing middle school students who do to those who do not receive inquiry scaffolding via the pedagogical agent (students randomly assigned to treatment conditions by topic). At the conclusion of the project, log data will be made freely available to scientific researchers for secondary research and teaching purposes via the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center DataShop.