Orla Lahart

Increasing Parental Self-Efficacy in a Home-Tutoring Environment

Research suggests that parents with high levels of self-efficacy tend to make positive decisions about active engagement in the childs education, while parents with weak self-efficacy are often associated with less parental involvement. Therefore, endowing intelligent tutoring systems with the ability to adapt the level of support provided for the parent based on their self-efficacy may be of great benefit. Such a system might provide high levels of support for parents with low self-efficacy, while providing lower levels of support for parents with high self-efficacy. This paper explores the effect of using such an adaptive system in the home-tutoring context and, in particular, reports on two complementary empirical studies. In the first study, a dynamic self-efficacy model, learned from runtime self-report data is used to provide adaptive support for the parent. In the second empirical study, the dynamic self-efficacy model was expanded to allow parents to request for further support outside what is deemed necessary based on their self-efficacy model. Both studies comprised a control group which received full support regardless of their self-efficacy throughout the entire experiment. Results indicate clear increases in parental self-efficacy as a result of the provision of adaptive support throughout the home-tutoring process.

P.A.C.T. – scaffolding best practice in home tutoring

Research indicates a high correlation between parental involvement and a childs learning. The most effective parental involvement is when parents engage in learning activities with their child at home. However, parental involvement around learning activities may not occur spontaneously due to lack of domain knowledge, teaching strategies or structured support. This paper discusses how these issues can be addressed through the Parent and Child Tutor (P.A.C.T.). In particular, P.A.C.T will provide support for Suzuki parents during violin practice at home. This paper presents two studies; the first study identifies a set of best practice exemplars through lesson observations and interviews with the domain expert which informs the design of P.A.C.T. The second study validates the design of the system through analysing parent-child practice with and without the support of P.A.C.T. Results suggests that P.A.C.T. is effective in significantly increasing the use of best practice exemplars, in particular positive reinforcement and motivational games.

A System for Music Information Retrieval

Information Retrieval, and in part Music Information Retrieval, has come to the fore in recent years as a research area. In this paper we outline the design of a system which allows for the retrieval of tunes from a music database. We describe algorithms and implementation of techniques to allow for the retrieval of tunes based on the occurrence of phrases or sub-phrases together with algorithms for the comparison of tunes via the vector space model.