Equity and Fairness of Bayesian Knowledge Tracing

We consider the equity and fairness of curricula derived from Knowledge Tracing models. We begin by defining a unifying notion of an equitable tutoring system as a system that achieves maximum possible knowledge in minimal time for each student interacting with it. Realizing perfect equity requires tutoring systems that can provide individualized curricula per student. In particular, we investigate the design of equitable tutoring systems that derive their curricula from Knowledge Tracing models. We first show that many existing models, including classical Bayesian Knowledge Tracing (BKT) and Deep Knowledge Tracing (DKT), and their derived curricula can fall short of achieving equitable tutoring. To overcome this issue, we then propose a novel model, Bayesian-Bayesian Knowledge Tracing (BBKT), that naturally enables online individualization and, thereby, more equitable tutoring. We demonstrate that curricula derived from our model are more effective and equitable than those derived from classical BKT models. Furthermore, we highlight that improving models with a focus on the fairness of next-step predictions might be insufficient to develop equitable tutoring systems

When to stop? - Towards universal instructional policies

The adaptivity of intelligent tutoring systems relies on the accuracy of the student model and the design of the instructional policy. Recently an instructional policy has been presented that is compatible with all common student models. In this work we present the next step towards a universal instructional policy. We introduce a new policy that is applicable to an even wider range of student models including DBNs modeling skill topologies and forgetting. We theoretically and empirically compare our policy to previous policies. Using synthetic and real world data sets we show that our policy can effectively handle wheel-spinning students as well as forgetting across a wide range of student models