Ateneo Laboratory for the Learning Sciences

The paper, entitled “Understanding wheel spinning in the context of affective factors,” was written by Ma. Mercedes T. Rodrigo. The paper will be presented at the Ala Moana Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii on June 7-9, 2014.

Abstract. The notion of wheel spinning, students getting stuck in the mastery learning cycle of an ITS without mastering the skill, is an emerging issue. Although wheel spinning has been analyzed, there has been little work in understanding what factors underlie it, and whether it occurs in cultural contexts outside that of the United States. This work analyzes data from 116 students in an urban setting in the Philippines. We found that Filipino students using the Scatterplot Tutor exhibited wheel spinning behaviors. We explore the impact of an intervention, Scooter the Tutor, on wheel spinning behavior and did not find that it had any effect. We also analyzed data from quantitative field observations, and found that wheel spinning is negatively correlated with flow, positively correlated with confusion, but not correlated with boredom. This result suggests that the problem of wheel spinning is primarily cognitive in nature, ..and not related to student motivation. However, wheel spinning is positively correlated with gaming the system, so those constructs seem to be related.

The paper, entitled “Carelessness and Affect in an Intelligent Tutoring System for Mathematics,” was written by Maria Ofelia Z. San Pedro, Ryan S. J. d. Baker, and Ma. Mercedes T. Rodrigo.

Abstract. We investigate the relationship between students’ affect and their frequency of careless errors while using an Intelligent Tutoring System for middle school mathematics. A student is said to have committed a careless error when the student’s answer is wrong despite knowing the skill required to provide the correct answer. We operationalize the probability that an error is careless through the use of an automated detector, developed using educational data mining, which infers the probability that an error involves carelessness rather than not knowing the relevant skill. This detector is then applied to log data produced by high-school students in the Philippines using a Cognitive Tutor for scatterplots. We study the relationship between carelessness and affect, triangulating between the detector of carelessness and field observations of affect. Surprisingly, we find that carelessness is common among students who frequently experience engaged concentration. This finding implies that a highly engaged student may paradoxically become overconfident or impulsive, leading to more careless errors. In contrast, students displaying confusion or boredom make fewer careless errors. Further analysis over time suggests that confused and bored students have lower learning overall. Thus, their mistakes appear to stem from a genuine lack of knowledge rather than carelessness.

The first paper, entitled “A Mobile Authoring Tool for Augmented Reality Content Generation Using Images as Annotations,” was written by Jayzon Ty, Ma. Mercedes Rodrigo, and Marc Ericson Santos.

Abstract. Augmented Reality is a technology that allows the superimposition of virtual objects onto the real world environment. Various fields, such as education, medicine, and architecture, started adapting Augmented Reality technology in their systems. However, developing Augmented Reality applications, along with their contents, requires a specific skillset, which limits the amount of Augmented Reality based applications that are developed. Various tools were developed for the desktop systems in order to ease the development of Augmented Reality applications and content, yet only few attempts have been made to develop these kinds of tools for mobile systems. This study aims to provide users with a mobile application that allows them to author content for Augmented Reality viewing using 2D images. Furthermore, the study aims to provide the tool to users such that users will be able to produce and to edit Augmented Reality content on the spot. After the application was developed, a usability test was conducted with eight teachers in order to assess the difficulty of using the application. The user testing showed that the application developed was generally easy to use, and that further addition of features can improve the application. This paper will present an explanation of how the application was built, the results of the usability testing, and feedback gathered.

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The second paper, entitled “Confusion and Compilation Logs: A Study of Novice Programmer Experiences,” was written by Teresita Paccarangan.

Abstract. The study explored the relationship between confusion and compilation behaviour of the novice programmer.  Confusion was detected in the context of facial expressions and program writing as captured in video. Videos of student faces and their screens were synchronized, time-sliced and labelled.  Percentages of confusion were then correlated with features of the students’ compilation behaviours.  Our study showed that relationships between video confusion rate and number of errors, video confusion rate and number of compilations, video confusion rate and total time, video confusion rate and EQ, and confusion rate from the compilation logs and the confusion rate from the video observations were not significant. Increasing the affect judgment is recommended by including affect judgment from an expert or who has done affect judgment through videos, and by using smaller time slices for the complete duration of the video.

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Both papers were accepted for oral presentation at the University of Immaculate Conception, Davao City on March 6 to 8, 2014.

Dr. Rodrigo, Justin Gregory Pena, and Jayzon Ty were invited to present at Miriam College’s Math and Science Week on augmented reality and virtual reality. After giving a short lecture on the topics, they demonstrated Jayzon’s thesis on a mobile authoring tool for augmented reality.

Jayzon and his augmented reality thesis project.

Miriam College high school students watching as Jayzon demonstrates his thesis project.

They then demonstrated Justin and Gian Roma Tobias’s “Space Rift”, a solar system exploration game built for the oculus rift.

A screen cap of Space Rift.

Justin explaining how the game works to the Miriam College high school students.

An ALLS paper on Augmented Reality was accepted into the upcoming 14th Philippine Computing Science Congress.

The paper entitled “A Mobile Authoring Tool for Augmented Reality Content Generation Using Images as Annotations“ by Jayzon Ty, Marc Ericson Santos, and Ma. Mercedes T. Rodrigo was accepted for oral presentation at the University of Immaculate Conception, Davao City on March 6 to 8, 2014.

Abstract. Augmented Reality is a technology that allows the superimposition of virtual objects onto the real world. Various fields, such as education, medicine, and architecture, started adapting Augmented Reality technology in order to enhance the experience of the users of their systems. However, developing Augmented Reality application and its contents requires a specialized knowledge in computer programming, computer graphics, and software development, which results in only specific people being able to experience Augmented Reality. This paper describes a tool that allows users to produce content for Augmented Reality viewing without the need for specialized knowledge. Furthermore, the tool enables users to create and edit Augmented Reality content on the spot, without the need for a separate application in order to do so.