Preliminary Evaluations of a Dialogue-Based Digital Tutor

Matthew Ventura, Maria Chang, Peter Foltz, Nirmal Mukhi, Jessica Yarbro, Anne Pier Salverda, John Behrens, Jae-wook Ahn, Tengfei Ma, Tejas I. Dhamecha, Smit Marvaniya, Patrick Watson, Cassius D'Helon, Ravi Tejwani, Shazia Afzal

Abstract: IBM and Pearson have partnered to develop dialogue-based intelligent tutoring systems at an unprecedented scale. We leveraged the decades-long research in intelligent tutoring systems (specifically dialogue based tutoring systems) and advances in machine learning and natural language processing to create a Watson dialogue-based tutor (WDBT). WDBT is currently being used by hundreds of students across multiple institutions. This paper describes our plans for preliminary evaluations of WDBT. Our formal evaluations begin in Spring 2018 and we will present findings shortly thereafter.