Abstract
For 20 years, researchers have envisioned artificially intelligent learning companions that evolve with their students as they grow and learn. However, while communication theory suggests that positivity decreases over time in relationships, most tutoring systems designed to build rapport with a student remain adamantly polite, and may therefore inadvertently distance the learner from the agent over time. We present an analysis of high school friends interacting in a peer tutoring environment as a step towards designing agents that sustain long-term pedagogical relationships with learners. We find that tutees and tutors use different language behaviors: tutees express more playfulness and face-threat, while tutors attend more to the task. This face-threat by the tutee is associated with increased learning gains for their tutor. Additionally, a small sample of partners who were strangers learned less than friends, and in these dyads increased face-threat was negatively correlated with learning. Our findings support the idea that learning companions should gradually move towards playful face-threat as they build relationships with their students.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Sharpley, A., Irvine, J., Sharpley, C.: An examination of the effectiveness of a cross-age tutoring program in mathematics for elementary school children. American Educational Research Journal 20(1), 101–111 (1983)
Rohrbeck, C.A., Ginsburg-Block, M.D., Fantuzzo, J.W., Miller, T.R.: Peer-assisted learning interventions with elementary school students: a meta-analytic review. Journal of Educational Society 95(2), 240–257 (2003)
Webb, N.: Peer interaction and learning in small groups. International Journal of Educational Research 13(1), 21–39 (1989)
Brophy, S., Biswas, G., Katzberger, T., Bransford, J., Schwartz, D.: Teachable agents: combining insights from learning theory and computer science. Artificial Intelligence in Education 50, 21–28 (1999)
Matsuda, N., Yarzebinski, E., Keiser, V., Raizada, R., Stylianides, G.J., Cohen, W.W., Koedinger, K.R.: Learning by Teaching SimStudent – An Initial Classroom Baseline Study Comparing with Cognitive Tutor. In: Biswas, G., Bull, S., Kay, J., Mitrovic, A. (eds.) AIED 2011. LNCS, vol. 6738, pp. 213–221. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Gulz, A., Silvervarg, A., Sjoden, B.: Design for off-task interaction - Rethinking pedagogy in technology enhanced learning. In: Proceedings of the 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (2010)
Chan, T., Baskin, A.: Studying with the prince: the computer as a learning companion. In: ITS 1988 Conference, Montreal, Canada, pp. 194–200 (1988)
Goffman, E.: The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday, NY (1959)
Brown, P., Levinson, S.: Universals in Language Usage: Politeness phenomena. In: Goody, E.N. (ed.) Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. University Press, London (1978)
McLaren, B., DeLeeuw, K., Mayer, R.: Polite web-based intelligent tutors: Can they improve learning in classrooms? Computers and Education 56(3), 574–584 (2011)
Johnson, W.L., Rizzo, P.: Politeness in Tutoring Dialogs: “Run the Factory, That’s What I’d Do”. In: Lester, J.C., Vicari, R.M., Paraguaçu, F. (eds.) ITS 2004. LNCS, vol. 3220, pp. 67–76. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Tickle-Degnen, L., Rosenthal, R.: The Nature of Rapport and its Nonverbal Correlates. Psychological Inquiry, 285–293 (1990)
Culpeper, J.: Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics 25(3), 349–367 (1996)
Straehle, C.A.: "Samuel?" "Yes dear?" Teasing and conversational rapport. In: Tannen, D. (ed.) Framing in Discourse. Open University Press, New York (1993)
Keinpointer, M.: Varieties of rudeness: types and functions of impolite utterances. Functions of Language, 251–287 (1997)
Ardington, A.: Playfully negotiated activity in girls’ talk. Journal of Pragmatics 38(1), 73–95 (2006)
Mills, S.: Gender and politeness. Journal of Politeness Research 1(2), 263–280 (2005)
Ogan, A., Finkelstein, S., Mayfield, E., D’Adamo, C., Matsuda, N., Cassell, J.: “Oh dear Stacy!” Social Interaction, Elaboration, and Learning with Teachable Agents. In: To appear in Proceedings of CHI 2012 (2012)
Graesser, A., McNamara, D.: Self-Regulated Learning in Learning Environments with Pedagogical Agents that Interact in Natural Language. In: The Measurement of Learners’ Self-Regulated Cognitive and Metacognitive Processes While Using Computer-Based Learning Environments, pp. 234–244 (2010)
Cassell, J.: Towards a Model of Technology and Literacy Development: Story Listening Systems. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 25(1), 75–105 (2004)
Walker, E., Rummel, N., Koedinger, K. R.: Adaptive support for CSCL: Is it feedback relevance or increased accountability that matters? In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, pp. 334–342 (2011)
Boyer, K.E., Phillips, R., Wallis, M., Vouk, M.A., Lester, J.C.: Balancing Cognitive and Motivational Scaffolding in Tutorial Dialogue. In: Woolf, B.P., Aïmeur, E., Nkambou, R., Lajoie, S. (eds.) ITS 2008. LNCS, vol. 5091, pp. 239–249. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Herring, S., Zelenkauskaite, A.: Symbolic Capital in a Virtual Heterosexual Market. Written Communication 26, 5–31 (2009)
Cassell, J., Gill, A., Tepper, P.: Coordination in Conversation and Rapport. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Embodied Natural Language. Association for Computational Linguistics (2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Ogan, A., Finkelstein, S., Walker, E., Carlson, R., Cassell, J. (2012). Rudeness and Rapport: Insults and Learning Gains in Peer Tutoring. In: Cerri, S.A., Clancey, W.J., Papadourakis, G., Panourgia, K. (eds) Intelligent Tutoring Systems. ITS 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7315. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30950-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30950-2_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-30949-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-30950-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)