Adapting Learning Activities Selection in

an Intelligent Tutoring System to Affect

Chinasa Odo(B)

University of Aberdeen, Kings Street, Aberdeen, UK

r01cro17@abdn.ac.uk

Abstract. My PhD focuses on adapting learning activities selection to

learner affect in an intelligent tutoring system. The research aims to
investigate the affective states considered for adapting learning activity
selection, and how to adapt to these. It also seeks to know how learner’s
affective state can be obtained through tutor-learner interaction rather
than via sensors or questionnaires. The research will use of a mixture of
qualitative and quantitative methods to achieve these aims. This research
will significantly contribute to the area of intelligent tutoring technology
by providing more insights into how to adapt to affective states, and
improve the delivery of learning. The result will lead to an algorithm for
learning activity selection based on affect, which also incorporates other
relevant learner characteristics, such as personalty, that moderate affect.

Keywords: Affective state · Learning activity selection

Personalization

1 Introduction
In recent times, affect is considered an important aspect in learning. Affective
states are emotions or feelings expressed in the face, tone, or gesture which
have a powerful and subconscious influence on how people think, behave, and
deal with social information [6,9]. During learning, both positive and negative
affect are expected in a learner. In a traditional learning environment, a human
tutor uses the learners’ observed affective state to adapt teaching strategies.
However, different people learn differently and may well experience different
affective states in the same learning context. Hence, the method a teacher adopts
may not work well for every learner in a group. This has prompted a need
for alternative solutions using computational methods. An intelligent tutoring
system is a computer system aimed at providing customized instructions and
feedback to learners [17]. Human tutors have the capability to observe most
changes in affective state, but an intelligent tutoring system has the capability
to recognize, respond and react to affect [16]. The intelligent tutoring system
may respond to learners’ affective state in real-time by providing personalized
and contextual feedback. In my PhD, I am interested not just to respond to
affective state (in the sense of providing for example emotional support), but
c Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
C. Penstein Rosé et al. (Eds.): AIED 2018, LNAI 10948, pp. 521–525, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93846-2_98
522 C. Odo

rather how learning acitivity selection can be adapted to affective state in the
hope of not just gaining better learning outcomes but of postively influencing
affective state.

2 Research Questions
My research will answer the following research questions:

1. Which affective states should be considered when adapting learning activity

selection?
2. How can a learner’s affective state and other relevant characteristics be
obtained through tutor-learner interaction during learning (rather than via
sensors or questionnaires)?
3. What is an effective algorithm for adapting learning activity selection to
affective state?

3 Related Work
Several studies have investigated which student affective states are present dur-
ing learning [1,10]. Their results revealed the affective states of confusion, frus-
tration and anxiety as prominent during learning. Investigating facial features
for affective state detection in learning environments [13] discovered the affec-
tive states of boredom, confusion, delight, flow, frustration, and surprise. Craig
et al. [3] worked on the role that affective states play in learning from the per-
spective of a constructivist learning framework. They observed that frustration,
boredom, flow, confusion, eureka and neutral affective states occurred during
learning with AutoTutor. Several emotional models already exist such as the
academic emotional model by Pekrun et al. in [7,15]
Affective states have been shown to influence learning. For example, Tyng
et al’s study [18] showed that emotional events are remembered more clearly,
accurately and for longer periods of time than neutral events. They believe that
affect has a strong influence particularly on attention and behaviour. Craig et al.
[3] found significant relationships between learning and the affective states of
boredom, flow and confusion. A pre- and post-test was used to explore the rela-
tionship between affect and learning using an animated pedagogical agent. [8]
observed that system can hold a conversation with the learner using natural
language and from the conversation, emotional experience can be tracked.
D’Mello et al. [4] investigated the reliability of a system detecting a learner’s
affective states in an attempt to augment an intelligent tutoring system with
the ability to incorporate such states into its pedagogical strategies to improve
learning. They believe that systems can be more than mere cognitive machines.
There is also previous work on learning activity selection. For example, a
study investigating the impact of personality and cognitive efficiency on the
selection of exercises for learners [14] showed how exercises can be selected based
 Adapting Learning Activities Selection in an Intelligent Tutoring System 523

on learners’ personality. Another study by [2] on a personalized e-learning sys-

tem showed that applying Item Response Theory (IRT) to Web-based learning
can achieve personalized learning and help learners to learn more effectively and
efficiently. Additionally, there has been substantial research on so-called educa-
tional recommender system by [5,11,19] though, these tend to focus on learner
interests and ability rather than affect.

4 Methodology, Current and Future Work

To answer Research Question 1, and get a first insight into Research Question
3, I will conduct qualitative research (focus groups, interviews) to supplement
literature review, to discover how learners and teachers feel affective state should
impact learning activity selection. I have developed scenarios to describe learners
experiencing particular emotions. I have conducted 8 focus groups with learners
which asked them about the emotions experienced during learning and used the
scenarios to investigate how they felt activity selection should take the emotions
described in the scenarios into account. The focus groups also provided insights
into the relevant attributes of learning activities. For example, focus groups sug-
gested to use activities in which the learner described in one scenario would work
together with the learner described in another scenario. So, one possible adap-
tation regards the selection of activities that allow learners with complimentary
affective states to work together. Follow-on interviews with teachers are planned.
The scenarios will need to be refined and validated to ensure they prop-
erly and only express a particular affective state and do not accidentally also
express personality traits. I will use the validated scenarios to further investi-
gate Research Question 3, conducting user studies to investigate how people
adapt their selection of learning materials to a learner’s affective state using the
User-as-Wizard method by [12]. The scenarios are used to accurately portray
a learner’s effective state so that the participant can use this as part of their
decision making. Based on the data, I will construct algorithms for automatic
adaptation of learning material selection to affective state.
It is quite possible that other learner characteristics, in particular personality,
may impact on how a learner’s affective state needs to be taken into consideration
(Research Question 2). Further qualitative studies will investigate this, followed
by user studies. This is likely to modify the algorithm.
To investigate the effectiveness of the algorithm, I plan to first test it in a
simple learning environment where a learner’s affective state has been induced.
I will need to consider on how exactly to do this (Research Question 3). This
may be followed by testing it in real life. To do the latter, I require a simple
and effective way of obtaining learner characteristics. I intend to base this on a
dialogue (Research Question 3).
524 C. Odo

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