Indirectly Visible Bayesian Student Models

Inspectable Bayesian student models have been used to support student reflection, knowledge awareness and communication among teacher, students and parents. This paper presents a new approach to interacting with inspectable Bayesian student models called indirectly visible Bayesian student models. In this approach, the student model is seen through the eyes of a pedagogical agent (e.g., a virtual student). This approach has been implemented in the context of an Assessment-Based Learning Environment for English grammar (English ABLE), where the student is asked to help a pedagogical agent find grammatical errors on various sentences. Since the pedagogical agent’s knowledge levels, which are also the student’s knowledge levels, are always visible, the student can see how much the pedagogical agent ”knows” based on his/her actions. Initial reactions to this approach have been positive. We are planning on integrating it into assessment-based learning and gaming environments as indicators of progress that continuously change in light of new evidence.