Beverly Woolf

This purpose of this project is to evaluate the efficacy of MathSpring, an online intervention that provides individualized affective and strategic support to students as they solve math problems. The need to improve students' mathematics achievement is well recognized. According to the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 34% of American public-school grade 8 students score at or above proficient in mathematics.

Computer tutors have been successful in improving learning by employing "intelligent" techniques to guide online, tailored interaction appropriate for a particular user. Although such tutors are responsive to the user's on-going performance, they do not attend to the user's affective state (e.g., levels of frustration, self-confidence). The purpose of this project is to extend the capabilities of two web-based mathematics tutors to assess online the user's affect and respond in ways to minim...