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PedAgents is a partnership between K12@USC and the IMMEX project directed by Dr. Ron Stevens, UCLA. IMMEX is a multimedia simulation environment to teach scientific problem solving, with problem sets in chemistry, earth sciences, life sciences, and physical sciences.

Prior research shows that IMMEX helps students develop scientific inquiry skills. However, some students use poor strategies and then keep using the same strategy over and over. That is, practice alone does not improve their problem solving.

To help these students, we are adding strategy advice to IMMEX to help students think about their approach. Our initial results indicate that students who view strategy hints before each problem are more likely to make progress towards good strategies. Control-group students who view hints with generic advice about schoolwork do not improve.

Sample strategy hint: "Try reading the introduction for this problem and then list three things you’ve learned in your science class that might help you solve it. Thinking about what you already know will help you make progress."

Sample generic hint: "It's a good idea to keep up with the textbook reading. Don't let yourself get too far behind in the assignments."

We are now investigating if strategy hints delivered by animated agents can help students even more than simple text messages.

Support for the PedAgents project is provided by the Institute
of Education Sciences Cognition and Student Learning (CASL) Program.