Tradeoff between Problem-solving and Learning Goals: Two Experiments for Demonstrating Assistance Dilemma

Recent intelligent tutoring systems give participants various types of supports. We hypothesize that a high level of support activates participants ’ orientation to problem-solving goals but reduces the priority of attaining learning goals; as a result, higher problem-solving performance is attained, but the learning effect is reduced. We tested this hypothesis by using two relatively largely different experimental tasks: Tower of Hanoi puzzle as a simple problem solving task and Natural Deduction learning as a more complex learning task. Overall results supported our hypothesis and were discussed from the viewpoint of the assistance dilemma

Changes in Learners’ Exploratory Behavior in a Simulated Psychology Laboratory

We constructed a virtual psychology laboratory (called VPL) on a computer. VPL simulates the process of pair subjects collaboratively solving Wason’s 2-4-6 task, which has been traditionally used in the field of the psychology of discovery science. Participants were required to study collaborative problem solving while repeating experiments and hypothesis revisions using VPL. We conducted three experimental sessions using VPL. As a result, we confirmed, across the sessions, the improvement in various types of participant ’ performance, such as the organizational construction of experimental design, the degree of correctness of hypotheses the participants formed, and the generality of findings they discovered. 1