6 research outputs found

    Modelling a conversational agent (Botocrates) for promoting critical thinking and argumentation skills

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    Students in higher education institutions are often advised to think critically, yet without being guided to do so. The study investigated the use of a conversational agent (Botocrates) for supporting critical thinking and academic argumentation skills. The overarching research questions were: can a conversational agent support critical thinking and academic argumentation skills? If so, how? The study was carried out in two stages: modelling and evaluating Botocrates' prototype. The prototype was a Wizard-of-Oz system where a human plays Botocrates' role by following a set of instructions and knowledge-base to guide generation of responses. Both stages were conducted at the School of Education at the University of Leeds. In the first stage, the study analysed 13 logs of online seminars in order to define the tasks and dialogue strategies needed to be performed by Botocrates. The study identified two main tasks of Botocrates: providing answers to students' enquiries and engaging students in the argumentation process. Botocrates’ dialogue strategies and contents were built to achieve these two tasks. The novel theoretical framework of the ‘challenge to explain’ process and the notion of the ‘constructive expansion of exchange structure’ were produced during this stage and incorporated into Botocrates’ prototype. The aim of the ‘challenge to explain’ process is to engage users in repeated and constant cycles of reflective thinking processes. The ‘constructive expansion of exchange structure’ is the practical application of the ‘challenge to explain’ process. In the second stage, the study used the Wizard-of-Oz (WOZ) experiments and interviews to evaluate Botocrates’ prototype. 7 students participated in the evaluation stage and each participant was immediately interviewed after chatting with Botocrates. The analysis of the data gathered from the WOZ and interviews showed encouraging results in terms of students’ engagement in the process of argumentation. As a result of the role of ‘critic’ played by Botocrates during the interactions, users actively and positively adopted the roles of explainer, clarifier, and evaluator. However, the results also showed negative experiences that occurred to users during the interaction. Improving Botocrates’ performance and training users could decrease users’ unsuccessful and negative experiences. The study identified the critical success and failure factors related to achieving the tasks of Botocrates

    Spoken Argumentation in the Adult ESOL classroom

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    This thesis is a discourse analysis of spoken argumentation in the Adult ESOL classroom. It investigates the ways in which it emerges and unfolds and also how teachers and students position themselves and each other in argumentation and how they are positioned by pedagogy and policy as well as by their histories. The principal focus is on verbal argumentation but some attention is also given to a more multimodal analysis. Argumentation is conceptualized in terms of competing and consensual voices (Costello and Mitchell, 1995). These voices are further conceptualized as situated speaking positions and, therefore, as identity positions. The study explores the ways in which argumentation unfolds, the ways it seeks to persuade and the identity work this involves. Argumentation is connected to wider questions of citizenship and democracy, with the Adult ESOL classroom seen as the agora for the wider enactment and modelling of full democratic citizenship

    Improving the Analysis of Foreign Affairs: Evaluating Structured Analytic Techniques

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    Research suggests that foreign affairs analysis is weak—even the best analysts are accurate less than 35 percent of the time (Tetlock 2005). To compensate for analytic weaknesses, some have called for the use of structured analytic techniques, that is, formalized judgement-driven methods. This imperative was enshrined in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (2004), which mandates that analysts use these techniques. This research investigates how the techniques have been applied in the U.S. intelligence community (IC) while making a modest attempt to evaluate 12 core techniques. The investigation of how the techniques are applied is based on semi-structured interviews with 5 intelligence experts and a survey of 80 analysts at an IC agency, along with follow-up interviews with 15 analysts. Interestingly, 1 in 3 analysts reported never using the techniques. Two factors were related to the use of the techniques: analytic training (p=0.001, Cramer's V=0.41) and the perception of their value (p=.049, CramĂ©r's V= 0.23). There was not a statistically significant relation between the time pressure under which analysts work and their use of the techniques (p=0.74). Questions about the effectiveness of the techniques were answered in part by employing a “systematic review,” a novel methodology for synthesizing a large body of research. A random sample of more than 2,000 studies, suggests that there is moderate to strong evidence affirming the efficacy of using three techniques: Analysis of Competing Hypotheses, Brainstorming, and Devil’s Advocacy. There were three main findings: face-to-face collaboration decreases creativity, evidence weighting appears to be more important than seeking disconfirming evidence, and conflict tends to improve the quality of analysis. This research also employed an experiment with 21 graduate intelligence studies students, which confirmed the first two findings of the systematic review. The findings of the dissertation represent a contribution to “evidence-based intelligence analysis,” the systematic effort to develop a robust evidence-base linking the use of specific analytic techniques to the improvement of analysis in foreign affairs. Future research might build on the evidence-base presented here to improve intelligence analysis, one of the most important areas of judgment in foreign affairs

    Three Fundamental Trade-offs in Expanding Sustainable Distributions of Manufacturing

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    The background of the research is the trend towards more inclusive manufacturing. This includes all levels of technologies to enable more diverse geographic and demographic distributions of manufacturing, which can improve ecological and social sustainability. Expanding distributions of manufacturing is of interest to governments, companies, communities and individuals. Interest among government and companies relates to manufacturing being re-shored and redistributed. Interest among communities and individuals is in people having more involvement in the production of what they consume: i.e. prosumption. Expansion of geographic distributions has potential to increase ecological sustainability, for example, by reducing long-distance transportation. Expansion of demographic distributions has potential to increase social sustainability, for example, by increasing the diversity of people involved in manufacturing. The dissertation addresses three research gaps concerned with sustainable distributed manufacturing. In particular, the fundamental challenges of three manufacturing trade-offs are addressed as follows: product originality, product complexity, and product unsustainability versus sustainable distributed manufacturing. There are three main findings from the research. First, technological advances enable expansion of sustainable distributed manufacturing of original products, if the products are small simple original products rather than large complicated original products. Second, technological advances enable sustainable distributed manufacturing of products that are more complex than could otherwise be made far from manufacturing infrastructures, but which nonetheless are not the most complex products. Third, technological advances enable more sustainable distributed production of products with unsustainable features, if technological advances are applied also to some existing distributions of manufacturing. Consideration of these three main findings and three further findings, suggests two complementary strategies for expanding sustainable manufacturing distributions: trade-off reduction and trade-off avoidance. Overall, the research is novel through its inclusion of diverse technologies and distributions of manufacturing in order to determine their relative potential to improve the production of physical goods at more diverse locations by more diverse people

    The Talk Skills project : improving dialogic interaction in the Korean adult foreign language classroom

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    The purpose of this study was to develop the Talk Skills pedagogic intervention, implemented in the Korean adult L2 learning context, which aims to raise awareness of effective L2 talk and teach oral communicative strategies that help students to achieve it. The study is underpinned by theories that foreground the importance of language use in L2 classrooms, focusing, most importantly, on the relationship between interaction and second language acquisition, and sociocultural theory for language learning. Review of the literature showed that students had the best opportunities for language learning when classroom talk embodies characteristics such as students giving opinions, offering reasons, sharing information, respectfully challenging each other, attempting to reach agreement, negotiating meaning, noticing and building upon gaps in their language and promoting language learning through scaffolding and emergent language. This type of talk is termed here exploratory talk for language learning. However, research into the Korean context showed that Korean L2 learners encounter problems with classroom group oral interaction that inhibit the production of this kind of talk and that may lead to unfulfilled potential for learning. This led to the hypothesis that adult Korean L2 learners could benefit from lessons that raise awareness of this kind of talk and learn strategies to help achieve it. Drawing on previous attempts at metacognitive awareness raising of effective classroom talk, as well as literature on oral communicative strategy training, the Talk Skills intervention was developed using a design-based research (DBR) methodology. The scope of the project was limited to exploring the soundness and local viability of the intervention, using lesson transcript data, student interview feedback, my own field notes and expert appraisal from my course tutors to refine the intervention across two iterations. Initial impact of the project was also explored by analysing feedback from a small number of teachers who have used elements of the intervention in their adult English language courses. Taken as a whole, this thesis argues that Korean adult L2 learners can benefit from metacognitive awareness raising of exploratory talk for language learning and the learning of oral communicative strategies to help achieve this kind of talk. The thesis further argues that this aim can successfully be achieved using a design-based research methodology to both develop the Talk Skills intervention as a pedagogic tool, and further offer specific insight into instructional techniques, student engagement and teacher’s interactional roles that aid the success of its implementation. Finally, this thesis argues that as DBR is an underutilized methodology in the field of L2 research, the Talk Skills project offers a useful example of DBR for practitioner researchers wishing to embark on intervention design and development
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