Elsevier

Computers & Education

Volume 176, January 2022, 104351
Computers & Education

Computer-based guidance to support students’ revision of their science explanations

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2021.104351Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Modeling integrated revision can help students leverage automated guidance to strengthen their science explanations.

  • Embedding a model of revision into instruction may help learners try out this strategy with their own ideas.

  • Guiding students to distinguish and connect ideas when revising is as important as helping students add missing ideas.

  • Coupling a model of integrated revision with AI-based guidance creates meaningful writing/revision opportunities in science.

Abstract

As they encounter new ideas, students need to make integrated revisions to their science explanations, a key aspect of science learning. This involves filling gaps, resolving inconsistencies with evidence, and strengthening connections among ideas. Rather than making integrated revisions, even after automated, adaptive guidance, students typically add disconnected ideas or fix mechanical errors. The knowledge integration framework, supported by new technologies including natural language processing, guided the design of the Annotator, a tool that models the revision process for students’ written explanations. This research investigates the added value of the Annotator compared to automated, adaptive guidance to support students to make integrated revisions to their science explanations and to strengthen knowledge integration. 798 6th and 7th-grade students from 4 schools participated in a study featuring pretests, posttests, embedded student explanations, student interviews and observations. Students using the Annotator who initially displayed unintegrated ideas were more likely to make integrated revisions to their explanations, than students receiving automated, adaptive guidance. These students also made greater knowledge integration revisions on the posttest one week later. Thus, modeling revision with the Annotator strengthened the ability of students who started with unintegrated ideas to explain scientific phenomena.

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