Abstract
As players interact in a serious game, mentoring is often needed to facilitate progress and learning. Although human mentors are the current standard, they present logistical difficulties. Automating the mentor’s role is a difficult task, however, especially for multi-party collaborative learning environments. In order to better understand the conversational demands of a mentor, this paper investigates the dynamics and linguistic features of multi-party chat in the context of an online epistemic game, Urban Science. We categorized thousands of player and mentor contributions into eight different speech acts and analyzed the sequence of dialogue moves using State Transition Networks. The results indicate that dialogue transitions are relatively stable with respect to gameplay goals; however, task-oriented stages emphasize mentor-player scaffolding, whereas discussion-oriented stages feature player-player collaboration.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Ritterfeld, U., Cody, M., Vorderer, P. (eds.): Serious games: Mechanisms and effects. Routledge, New York (2009)
Hoyles, C., Noss, R., Adamson, R.: Rethinking the Microworld idea. Journal of Educational Computing Research 27(1-2), 29–53 (2002)
Dieterle, E., Clarke, J.: Multi-user virtual environments for teaching and learning. In: Pagani, M. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Multimedia Technology and Networking, 2nd edn. Idea Group, Hershey (in press)
Ketelhut, D., Dede, C., Clarke, J., Nelson, B., Bowman, C.: Studying situated learning in a multi-user virtual environment. In: Baker, E., Dickieson, J., Wulfeck, W., O’Neil, H. (eds.) Assessment of Problem Solving Using Simulations, pp. 37–58. Earlbaum, Mahweh (2007)
Shaffer, D.W.: How Computer Games Help Children Learn. Palgrave, New York (2007)
Millis, K., Forsyth, C., Butler, H., Wallace, P., Graesser, A.C., Halpern, D.: Operation ARIES! A serious game for teaching scientific inquiry. In: Ma, M., Oikonomou, A., Lakhmi, J. (eds.) Serious Games and Edutainment Applications, pp. 169–195. Springer, London (2011)
Bagley, E.S., Shaffer, D.W.: When people get in the way: Promoting civic thinking through epistemic gameplay. International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations 1(1), 36–52 (2009)
Kirschner, P.A., Sweller, J., Clark, R.E.: Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist 41(2), 75–86 (2006)
Nash, P., Shaffer, D.W.: Mentor modeling: The internalization of modeled professionalthinking in an epistemic game. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 27(2), 173–189 (2011)
Graesser, A.C., D’Mello, S.K., Cade, W.: Instruction based on tutoring. In: Mayer, R.E., Alexander, P.A. (eds.) Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction, pp. 408–426. Routledge, New York (2011)
Moldovan, C., Rus, V., Graesser, A.C.: Automated Speech Act Classification For Online Chat. In: The 22nd Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference (2011)
D’Andrade, R.G., Wish, M.: Speech act theory in quantitative research on interpersonal behavior. Discourse Processes 8(2), 229–259 (1985)
Gee, J.P.: An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. Routledge, New York (1999)
Nystrand, M.: Research on the role of classroom discourse as it affects reading comprehension. Research in the Teaching of English 40, 392–412 (2006)
Graesser, A.C., D’Mello, S.K., Cade, W.: Instruction based on tutoring. In: Mayer, R.E., Alexander, P.A. (eds.) Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction. Routledge Press, New York (in press)
Graesser, A.C., Person, N.K.: Question asking during tutoring. American Educational Research Journal 31, 104–137 (1994)
Sinclair, J., Coulthart, M.: Towards an analysis of discourse: The English used by teachers and pupils. Oxford University Press, London (1975)
Rus, V., Moldovan, C., Witherspoon, A., Graesser, A.C.: Automatic Identification of Speakers’ Intentions in A multi-Party Dialogue System. In: 21st Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse (2011)
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
Morgan, B., Keshtkar, F., Duan, Y., Nash, P., Graesser, A. (2012). Using State Transition Networks to Analyze Multi-party Conversations in a Serious Game. 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_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30950-2_21
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)