Title
The use of text mining to build a pedagogical agent capable of mediating synchronous online discussions in the context of foreign language learning
Abstract
The present paper discusses the use of text mining to support the design of a pedagogical agent that mediates synchronous online discussions of academic texts by undergraduate students of English as a foreign language. The pedagogical agent proposed here has the instructional role of a tutor collaborator that participates in the chat discussion following mediation strategies grounded on sociocultural theory to assist the collective writing. Furthermore, we propose a pedagogical agent model that uses text mining techniques to identify when students deviate from the main topics that should be addressed in their discussions in a real time chat. Another important function enabled by the use of the text mining tool involves the assessment of the discussion relevance in relation to the base text, which supports the pedagogical agent decision towards a more adequate intervention. The conception of using text mining to guide the pedagogical agent in the mediation of the students' discussions has been based on previous research that has already shown how this particular mining tool could support educators' work in the evaluation of essays and of students' contributions in discussion forums. Preliminary results of this study are also presented showing the agent's potential to foster students' online conversations.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1109/FIE.2013.6684853
FIE
Keywords
Field
DocType
internet,computer aided instruction,data mining,natural language processing,text analysis,english as a foreign language,academic texts,chat discussion,collective writing,discussion forums,essay evaluation,foreign language learning,pedagogical agent design,real time chat,sociocultural theory,student online conversation,synchronous online discussion mediation,text mining techniques,tutor collaborator,undergraduate students,online learning,pedagogical agent,text mining tool
TUTOR,Computer aided instruction,Text mining,World Wide Web,Foreign language learning,English as a foreign language,Computer science,Knowledge management,Mathematics education,Mediation (Marxist theory and media studies),Sociocultural evolution,The Internet
Conference
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0190-5848
2
0.39
References 
Authors
9
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
isis da costa pinho120.39
Daniel Epstein222.42
Eliseo Reategui3156.51
ygor correa420.39
eunice polonia520.39