TY - GEN
T1 - Reducing mind-wandering during vicarious learning from an intelligent tutoring system
AU - Mills, Caitlin
AU - Bosch, Nigel
AU - Krasich, Kristina
AU - D’Mello, Sidney K.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Mind-wandering is a ubiquitous phenomenon that is negatively related to learning. The purpose of the current study is to examine mind-wandering during vicarious learning, where participants observed another student engage in a learning session with an intelligent tutoring system (ITS). Participants (N = 118) watched a prerecorded learning session with GuruTutor, a dialogue-based ITS for biology. The response accuracy of the student interacting with the tutor (i.e., the firsthand student) was manipulated across three conditions: Correct (100% accurate responses), Incorrect (0% accurate), and Mixed (50% accurate). Results indicated that Firsthand Student Expertise influenced the frequency of mind-wandering in the participants who engaged vicariously (secondhand students), such that viewing a moderately-skilled firsthand learner (Mixed correctness) reduced the rate of mind-wandering (M = 25.4%) compared to the Correct (M = 33.9%) and Incorrect conditions (M = 35.6%). Firsthand Student Expertise did not impact learning, and we also found no evidence of an indirect effect of Firsthand Student Expertise on learning through mind-wandering (Firsthand Student Expertise → Mind-wandering → Learning). Our findings provide evidence that mind-wandering is a frequent experience during online vicarious learning and offer initial suggestions for the design of vicarious learning experiences that aim to maintain learners’ attentional focus.
AB - Mind-wandering is a ubiquitous phenomenon that is negatively related to learning. The purpose of the current study is to examine mind-wandering during vicarious learning, where participants observed another student engage in a learning session with an intelligent tutoring system (ITS). Participants (N = 118) watched a prerecorded learning session with GuruTutor, a dialogue-based ITS for biology. The response accuracy of the student interacting with the tutor (i.e., the firsthand student) was manipulated across three conditions: Correct (100% accurate responses), Incorrect (0% accurate), and Mixed (50% accurate). Results indicated that Firsthand Student Expertise influenced the frequency of mind-wandering in the participants who engaged vicariously (secondhand students), such that viewing a moderately-skilled firsthand learner (Mixed correctness) reduced the rate of mind-wandering (M = 25.4%) compared to the Correct (M = 33.9%) and Incorrect conditions (M = 35.6%). Firsthand Student Expertise did not impact learning, and we also found no evidence of an indirect effect of Firsthand Student Expertise on learning through mind-wandering (Firsthand Student Expertise → Mind-wandering → Learning). Our findings provide evidence that mind-wandering is a frequent experience during online vicarious learning and offer initial suggestions for the design of vicarious learning experiences that aim to maintain learners’ attentional focus.
KW - Attention
KW - Intelligent tutoring systems
KW - Mind-wandering
KW - Task-unrelated thought
KW - Vicarious learning
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068326872&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-23204-7_25
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-23204-7_25
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85068326872
SN - 9783030232030
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 296
EP - 307
BT - Artificial Intelligence in Education - 20th International Conference, AIED 2019, Proceedings
A2 - Isotani, Seiji
A2 - Millán, Eva
A2 - Ogan, Amy
A2 - McLaren, Bruce
A2 - Hastings, Peter
A2 - Luckin, Rose
PB - Springer
T2 - 20th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2019
Y2 - 25 June 2019 through 29 June 2019
ER -