Individualizing a Cognitive Model of Students' Memory in Intelligent Tutoring Systems

Educational software applications may be more effective if they can adapt their teaching strategies to the needs of individual students. Individualisation may be achieved through student modelling, which is the main practice for Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS). In this paper, we show how principles of cognitive psychology have been adapted and incorporated into the student modelling component of a knowledge-based authoring tool for the generation of ITSs. The cognitive model takes into account the time that has passed since the learning of a fact has occurred and gives the system an insight of what is known and remembered and what needs to be revised and when. This model is individualised by using evidence from each individual student’s actions.