Studies of Diagnosis and Remediation with High School Algebra Students

Despite extensive discussion in the literoture about the diagnosis and subsequent remediotion of students' errors, few studies have compared the effects of different styles of error-based remediotion. Swan (1983) found that a conflict approach (pointing out errors made by students and demonstrating their consequences) was more effective than simple reteaching, but Bunderson 8 Olsen (1983) found no difference between error-specific remediation and reteaching. Mare studies are needed in order to understond the factors which lead to successful remedia-tion. The three studies discussed in this article compared error-specific or model-based remediation (MBR) with reteaching in algebra. MBR bases its remediatian on the model inferred for on individual student before reteaching the correct procedure. Reteaching simply shows students the correct procedure without addressing specific errors. The results show that MBR and reteaching are both more effective than no tutoring: however, MBR is not clearly more effective than reteaching. The results ore discussed in terms of stability of errors, their relevance to educational practice and to intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). Although the studies were carried out using human tutors. the results suggest that for the purpose of remediation in the algebra domain, when taught procedurally, " classical " computer-assisted instruction (CAI) would be OS effective as an ITS.