Abstract
Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) are concerned with the use of artificial intelligence techniques for performing adaptive tutoring to learners' according to what they know about the domain. Researchers are increasingly interested in applying gamification in e-learning systems to engage students and to drive desired learning behaviors. However, little attention has been drawn to the effective application of gamification in ITS, and how to connect theories of both concepts in a standard and formal way. Moreover, gamified ITS should manipulate a huge amount of knowledge regarding several models, i.e., gamification, domain, student and pedagogical models. Formally connecting such theories as well as representing system's knowledge relies on the use of ontologies. In this paper, we present an ontological model that connects gamification and ITS concepts. Our model takes advantage of ontologies to allow automated reasoning (e.g., on the domain, student, pedagogical or gamification models), to enable interoperability, and create awareness about theories and good practices for the designers of gamified ITS. To evaluate our model, we use an ontology evaluation method based on five knowledge representation roles. We also illustrate how it could support the development of an intelligent authoring tool to design gamified ITS.
Highlights
Intelligent tutoring Systems (ITSs) have been drawing the attention of academics and practitioners since early 70’s (Woolf, 2010)
We used the FOCA methodology (Bandeira et al, 2016) to evaluate our ontology model. Our choice for such methodology was due because, in comparison to other ontologies evaluation strategies reported in the literature (Gruber, 1995; Gangemi et al, 1996; Gómez-Pérez, 1996; Obrst et al, 2007; Staab and Studer, 2013), this evaluation method strongly relies on the knowledge representation principles (Davis et al, 1993) as well as on constructs of other evaluation strategies to define a set According to Bandeira et al (2016), the ontology evaluation is performed in three steps: (1) verifying ontology’s type; (2) verifying questions and metrics, and (3) computing ontology’s scores
Connecting gamification and ITS theories as well as providing design practices for applying gamification in ITS can contribute to the effective design of gamified ITS that take into account both learning performance and motivation of students
Summary
Intelligent tutoring Systems (ITSs) have been drawing the attention of academics and practitioners since early 70’s (Woolf, 2010). ITSs deserve special attention since we can find strong empirical evidence that in some situations they can successfully complement and substitute other instructional models, and that these situations exist at all educational levels and in many common academic subjects (Ma et al, 2014). By contrast, motivated, challenged and intrigued students tend to have better learning results (VanLehn, 2011). In this way, relying on theories and models of motivation and human behavior, many works have been using persuasive technologies, for instance, gamification, to address the students’ disengagement and lack of motivation problems (Hamari et al, 2014).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
