[ACT-R-users] Data set

[Steve Ritter]

I've been thinking about a project, and I'd like to get some feedback.

The idea is to create a large, publicly-accessible database of student
behavior in math class (specifically Algebra I), based on work that students
do in our Cognitive Tutor courses.

The data would be at the unit task level, representing each significant
action (button press, textfield entry, etc.) in the student's work. The data
would also include the Cognitive Tutor's assessment of the action (what
subgoal the student was trying to achieve; whether the action was on a
correct solution path; what rules/skills were involved). Our models' rules
are at a much courser grainsize (1-5 seconds) than ACT-R models.

Since students use our software two days a week as part of their regular
math class, this would represent a substantial record of the development of
students' mathematical knowledge over a school year. Carnegie Learning is
starting to move to more web-based deployment, which makes it easier to
gather this kind of data in a central database. Realistically, I think we
could develop a database representing 10,000 students in a few years.

Since this data is coming directly from interaction with our Cognitive
Tutor, we wouldn't have any demographic data at the student level, though it
might be possible to link to school-level demographics.

I think we could get some funding from the NSDL program to support this
(http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/DUE/programs/nsdl/).

There are, of course, technical, legal, ethical and financial problems to
overcome, but putting that aside, I know how I'd use the data, but I wanted
to get a sense of how (and whether) others in the cognitive modeling
community would make use of this resource. Specifically:

- do you think this is worthwhile/would you find this useful?
- how would you use this?
- what would you want to see in the database's structure, content or
associate query and analysis tools that would make it more useful?

Thanks for any comments,

Steve Ritter

-- 
Steve Ritter, Ph.D.
Senior Cognitive Scientist
Carnegie Learning
1200 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222

steve at carnegielearning.com
(412) 690-2442 x122