Motivating Students in Collaborative Activities with Game-Theoretic Group Recommendations

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Motivating Students in Collaborative Activities with Game-Theoretic Group Recommendations
Language: English
Authors: Papamitsiou, Zacharoula (ORCID 0000-0002-0982-3623), Economides, Anastasios A. (ORCID 0000-0001-8056-1024)
Source: IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies. Apr-Jun 2020 13(2):374-386.
Availability: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854. Tel: 732-981-0060; Web site: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=4620076
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 13
Publication Date: 2020
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools
Secondary Education
Descriptors: Student Motivation, Cooperative Learning, Game Theory, Educational Resources, Heterogeneous Grouping, Homogeneous Grouping, Persistence, Problem Solving, High School Students, Computer Science Education, Predictor Variables
DOI: 10.1109/TLT.2018.2869582
ISSN: 1939-1382
Abstract: Recommending educational resources to groups of students is a common task in collaborative learning contexts. However, differences in within-group motivational factors might lead to conflicts in students' intention to use the resources. Previous methods fail to achieve high goodness of recommendation for the majority of students in heterogeneous groups. This study demonstrates a game-theoretic solution for recommending educational resources to homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. The group members are the players, the resources comprise the set of possible actions, and selecting those items that will maximize all students' motivation in the collaborative activity is a problem of finding the Nash Equilibrium (NE). In case the NE is Pareto efficient, none of the players can get more payoff (motivation) without decreasing the payoff of any other player, indicating an optimal benefit for the group as a whole. The suggested approach was empirically evaluated in a controlled experiment with a real dataset. The relevance of each delivered item to its corresponding students was explored both from the perspective of the group and its the individual students. The accuracy of the predicted group/individual motivation, the goodness of the ranked list of recommendations, and the problem-solving performance for the treatment group were significantly higher compared to the control groups. Limitations of the approach, as well as future work plans conclude the paper.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2021
Accession Number: EJ1279923
Database: ERIC
Description
Abstract:Recommending educational resources to groups of students is a common task in collaborative learning contexts. However, differences in within-group motivational factors might lead to conflicts in students' intention to use the resources. Previous methods fail to achieve high goodness of recommendation for the majority of students in heterogeneous groups. This study demonstrates a game-theoretic solution for recommending educational resources to homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. The group members are the players, the resources comprise the set of possible actions, and selecting those items that will maximize all students' motivation in the collaborative activity is a problem of finding the Nash Equilibrium (NE). In case the NE is Pareto efficient, none of the players can get more payoff (motivation) without decreasing the payoff of any other player, indicating an optimal benefit for the group as a whole. The suggested approach was empirically evaluated in a controlled experiment with a real dataset. The relevance of each delivered item to its corresponding students was explored both from the perspective of the group and its the individual students. The accuracy of the predicted group/individual motivation, the goodness of the ranked list of recommendations, and the problem-solving performance for the treatment group were significantly higher compared to the control groups. Limitations of the approach, as well as future work plans conclude the paper.
ISSN:1939-1382
DOI:10.1109/TLT.2018.2869582