Designing an Adaptive Dialogue to Promote Science Understanding

Abstract

We used Natural Language Processing (NLP) to design an adaptive computer dialogue that engages students in a conversation to reflect on and revise their written explanations of a science dilemma. We study the accuracy of the NLP idea detection. We analyze how 98 12-13 year-olds interacted with the dialogue as a part of a Diagnostic Inventory. We study students’ initial and revised science explanations along with their logged responses to the dialogue. The dialogue led to a high rate of student revision compared to prior studies of adaptive guidance. The adaptive prompt encouraged students to reflect on prior experiences, to consider new variables, and to raise scientific questions. Students incorporated these new ideas when revising their initial explanations. We discuss how these adaptive dialogues can strengthen science instruction.