Using Enhanced Concept Map for Student Modeling in Programming Tutors

We have been using the concept map of the domain, enhanced with pedagogical concepts called learning objectives, as the overlay student model in our intelligent tutors for programming. The resulting student model is finegrained, and has several advantages: (1) it facilitates better adaptation during problem generation; (2) it makes it possible for the tutor to automatically vary the level of locality during problem generation to meet the needs of the learner; (3) it clarifies to the learner the relationship among domain concepts when opened to scrutiny; (4) the tutor can estimate the level of understanding of a student in any higher-level concept, not just the concepts for which it presents problems; and (5) two tutors in a domain can affect each other’s adaptation of problems. Prior evaluations have shown that tutors that use enhanced concept maps help improve learning.