Combining Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Automatic Story Generation for Personalised Tutoring with Mobile Robots

Abstract

Programming has become a mandatory subject in some schools and is being moved to earlier stages of education. In this master thesis, a system is conceptualized that integrates an intelli- gent tutoring system (ITS) with an adaptive story to create an adaptive tutorial for the Thymio robot and its Visual Programming Language (VPL). The resulting system is a game in the style of visual novels that uses programming questions to motivate users’ exploration of the Thymio’s functionality. The implementation of the ITS in this master thesis uses a modified Zone of Proximal Development and Empirical Success (ZPDES) algorithm. The algorithm tracks learning rate through the recent successes of a user and chooses suitable exercises while conforming to the constraints of a consistent narrative. The modified algorithm has been validated with user simulations and a preliminary user study with the target audience has been conducted.