What Can Hypertext Re-Reading Tell Us about the Design of Adaptive (Metacognitive) Help Functions?

A well-documented finding in the help-seeking literature is that especially those learners who need it the most do not seek help (appropriately). In this exploratory study, we investigated re-reading as a unique window into elementary help-seeking processes. Students had to learn the content of multiple hypertext pages of different complexity for a subsequent knowledge test. After this learning phase we randomly assigned learners to two experimental groups: The memory control group (MG, n = 14) directly answered the knowledge test and the experimental help-seeking group (HSG, n = 15) had the option to re-read the hypertext pages before answering. Results show that HSG students outperformed MG students and that HSG students strongly adapted the extent and frequency of their re-reading to task complexity and the complexity of the hypertext pages. However, more re-reading or more adaptivity did not automatically enhance performance on the knowledge test. The implications of these findings for the design of adaptive (metacognitive) help functions in computer-based learning environments will be discussed. Help-Seeking and Re-Reading Given learners’ difficulties in adequately using helpfunctions in computer-based learning environments (CBLEs), it is paramount to study the help-seeking process in detail in order to design adequate help functions. We argue that re-reading of written material provided in CBLEs, is a rudimentary a process of help seeking. Thus re-reading provides a window into elementary processes involved in help-seeking, namely how students adapt their seeking for additional information to the task at hand and under which conditions they decide to seek help. Help-Seeking in CBLEs According to Aleven, Stahl, Schworm, Fischer, and Wallace (2003) an increasing number of studies provides evidence that learners often do not use help functions in CBLEs very effectively or even ignore them totally. However, some studies also show that the adequate use of help-functions is beneficial for performance. For example, Bartholomé, Stahl, Pieschl, and Bromme (2006) showed that the use of context-sensitive help within a CBLE was positively related to better performance. Also Renkl and colleagues (Renkl 2002, Schworm, and Renkl 2002) demonstrated a causal relation between the availability of help functions in a CBLE and better learning results. In traditional classroom settings as well as in CBLEs help-seeking is conceptualized as a metacognitively guided self-regulated learning activity (Nelson-LeGall 1981; Newman, 1994). It is assumed to be a micro-level indicator of the macro-level self-regulated learning process of managing “task difficulties and demands” (Greene and Azevedo 2009). Help-seeking involves multiple complex phases (Nelson-LeGall 1981; Aleven et al. 2001): (1) Learners have to become aware of their need for help, for example by assessing task difficulty, monitoring progress, and evaluating one’s own comprehension. (2) Learners have to decide to seek help. In some contexts, learners may consciously decide not to seek help even though they recognize their own needs, for example, if they do not believe in the utility of the offered help functions. (3) Learners have to identify potential helper(s). CBLEs facilitate this step because they often offer easily accessible help functions. (4) Learners have to use strategies to elicit help, in CBLEs they can, for example, click on the selected help feature. (5) Learners can evaluate the effectiveness of the help-seeking episode. If the received help is not helpful, a learner may decide to select another kind of help. In CBLEs, help functions can take many forms (Aleven et al. 2003), for example they can be on-demand versus system-initiated or they can be process-oriented vs. function-oriented. In all cases, however, they provide additional information. In contrast, we suggest to conceive re-reading as help seeking with regard to information which has been available from the beginning, but which might subjectively include new information for the reader because she or he has skipped parts of the content during initial reading or U 75 Cognitive and Metacognitive Educational Systems: Papers from the AAAI Fall Symposium (FS-10-01)