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Session 2793

Recognizing Symbolic Errors in Student Responses Eric Bell Triton College

Web pages and computer programs are becoming more interactive with every year. An intranet-based tutoring system currently in use at Triton College requires that students enter a numeric expression as part of their on-line assignment. The purpose of the system is to identify errors made by the student and to provide assistance to those who may be having difficulty with details in the problem solution.

The challenge with numeric expressions is that while a student may enter an expression that evaluates to a correct answer, what is to be done if the student's response is not correct? A trivial response is to merely tell the student that their entry is incorrect and ask them to try again. A better solution is to identify the type of error made by the student. For instance, it is not uncommon for a student to misapply a trigonometric function. The goal for the system is to recognize that the source of the error was the trig function, and not some other cause, and then provide either explanation or remediation.

The previous version used a system that was very labor intensive and required a great deal of creativity on the part of the tutorial designer. The current system builds on previous efforts and is able to identify more creative, and multiple, errors on the part of the student with substantially less work on the part by the designer and is a significant extension of previous efforts. This paper will describe the system currently in use that is being tested on students.

Background

Computer aided instruction has come a long way since the early days of drill and practice, however, there is still much to do. Current research in computer–based tutoring systems have yielded us few programs suitable for field use, but have provided us a wealth of didactic functions. Among these are problem solving strategies and more tactical discourse elements. Both of these are intended to help students bridge their understanding for the material – an engineering course in this case – to new knowledge. The fundamental tenet of the process lies in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, which is that a student’s understanding is incomplete, but he/she is capable of greater achievement with some assistance by a “more knowledgeable other” in those topics of incomplete knowledge.

By definition, a student’s knowledge is incomplete during the learning process. The only determination of correct behavior comes in the form of a test, which may be the solution for a problem. The delay may not be desirable, though, because by the time a problem solution has been presented, many steps, and opportunities for errors, have passed, and

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Bell, E. (2002, June), Recognizing Symbolic Errors In Student Responses Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10271