Developing a mobile science tutoring system for grade school children that evaluates student engagement through gaze and behaviour

• Main Authors: Calapatia, Earl Arvin A., Catindig, Cassandra E., Guarnes, Garry Allen P., Marquez, Nicole Eric D.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Subjects: Intelligent tutoring systems; Science > Tutors and tutoring; Mentoring in education; Computer Sciences
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/10467
• Institution: De La Salle University

The research built around the existing system, Environmental Awareness Learning System, has cited several limitation that this new iteration, EARLS2, wishes to answer. The first issue is that because the lesson content of the EALS System was found to be too easy in terms of difficulty, the researchers were not able to come to a solid conclusion in measuring the systems ability to reengage the student with their interventions. Following the zone of flow theory which states that there must be a right amount of difficulty in learning new material and answering challenging exercises, the researchers chose to add a new module of more difficult lessons to challenge the students more and to be able to induce disengagement from the students so redirecting their engagement can be possible and measurable. Secondly, the previous system also cites the lack of using visual context as modality in the evaluation of engagement. According to DMellos paper on his system Gaze tutor, making the learning system gaze-reactive bore results of improvement in students, deep level comprehension. Another paper by Ishii et. al. furthers this theory by discovering a positive correlation between the duration-based estimation of a persons gaze and his level of engagement. Following this, the researchers have chosen to add gaze tracking as modality in determining the engagement of the student. Lastly, the researchers have ported the system into a mobile device, specifically the iPad, for the convenience of the target users, DLSZ Grade 3 Science students, who regularly use iPads as a supplementary learning medium. This document will serve as the elaboration of the new systems design and implementation and design decisions made by the researchers, as well as the methodology of evaluating the applications effectiveness in tracking and redirecting engagement as well as user acceptance and the analysis of the results of this evaluation.