Abstract
iSTART is an intelligent tutoring system designed to provide self-explanation instruction and practice to improve students’ comprehension of complex, challenging text. This study examined the effects of extended game-based practice within the system as well as the effects of two metacognitive supports implemented within this practice. High school students (n = 234) were either assigned to an iSTART treatment condition or a control condition. Within the iSTART condition, students were assigned to a 2 × 2 design in which students provided self-assessments of their performance or were transferred to Coached Practice if their performance did not reach a certain performance threshold. Those receiving iSTART training produced higher self-explanation and inference-based comprehension scores. However, there were no direct effects of either metacognitive support on these learning outcomes.
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This research was supported in part by the Institute of Education Sciences (R305A130124). Any opinions, conclusions, or recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent views of the IES.
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McCarthy, K.S., Jacovina, M.E., Snow, E.L., Guerrero, T.A., McNamara, D.S. (2017). iSTART Therefore I Understand: But Metacognitive Supports Did not Enhance Comprehension Gains. In: André, E., Baker, R., Hu, X., Rodrigo, M., du Boulay, B. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Education. AIED 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10331. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61425-0_17
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