Development of Angular Motion, Angular Momentum, and Torque Knowledge Bases for an Intelligent Physics Tutoring System
Abstract
This research involved the design and development of a physics knowledge base which allows an intelligent tutoring system ANDES to more effectively assist students in physics problem-solving. ANDES is a Office of Naval Research funded collaborative effort between the U.S. Naval Academy and the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. The system tutors Newtonian physics via coached problem-solving a method of teaching cognitive skills where the tutor and the student work together to solve problems. The knowledge base developed in this project provides the physics backbone for the rest of the tutoring system by generating the necessary equations and solution graphs to solve selected angular motion physics problems. These mathematical outputs are used by other ANDES components to provide help to the students in a variety of ways. In order for ANDES to be an effective tutoring system the knowledge base developed had to fulfill certain criteria. It needed to model a teacher's approach to problem-solving using planning and decision-making strategies to find the solution path efficiently. It also had to be robust enough to generate several solution paths for problems that have more than one possible solution method. Since this research was the first attempt to develop a knowledge base for the angular motion area of physics encoding these concepts presented unique challenges. For example the concept of normal force which is easily understood in the classic "object on top of a surface problem" becomes more difficult in the classic "roller coaster at the top of a loop" problem. However, both visualizations had to be modeled by the same implementation. The knowledge base designed and developed in this project successfully accomplished this modeling and is presently being incorporated into the larger ANDES project.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA359481
Entities
People
- Michael D. Eason
Organizations
- United States Naval Academy