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International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education

AIED 2015: Artificial Intelligence in Education pp 267–276Cite as

Mind Wandering During Learning with an Intelligent Tutoring System

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9112))

Abstract

Mind wandering (zoning out) can be detrimental to learning outcomes in a host of educational activities, from reading to watching video lectures, yet it has received little attention in the field of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). In the current study, participants self-reported mind wandering during a learning session with Guru, a dialogue-based ITS for biology. On average, participants interacted with Guru for 22 minutes and reported an average of 11.5 instances of mind wandering, or one instance every two minutes. The frequency of mind wandering was compared across five different phases of Guru (Common-Ground-Building Instruction, Intermittent Summary, Concept Map, Scaffolded Dialogue, and Cloze task), each requiring different learning strategies. The rate of mind wandering per minute was highest during the Common-Ground-Building Instruction and Scaffolded Dialogue phases of Guru. Importantly, there was significant negative correlation between mind wandering and learning, highlighting the need to address this phenomena during learning with ITSs.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

    Caitlin Mills & Sidney D’Mello

  2. Computer Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

    Sidney D’Mello & Nigel Bosch

  3. Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, 38152, USA

    Andrew M. Olney

Authors
  1. Caitlin Mills
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  2. Sidney D’Mello
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  3. Nigel Bosch
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  4. Andrew M. Olney
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Caitlin Mills .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Cristina Conati

  2. Computer Science Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

    Neil Heffernan

  3. Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Antonija Mitrovic

  4. E.T.S.I. Informática, Universidad National de Educacion a Distancia, Madrid, Spain

    M. Felisa Verdejo

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Mills, C., D’Mello, S., Bosch, N., Olney, A.M. (2015). Mind Wandering During Learning with an Intelligent Tutoring System. In: Conati, C., Heffernan, N., Mitrovic, A., Verdejo, M. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Education. AIED 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9112. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19773-9_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19773-9_27

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-19772-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-19773-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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