Towards an intelligent tutor for a complex mathematical domain
Hyacinth S. Nwana, Peter Coxhead · Expert Systems · 1988
Abstract: The domain of mathematics has played a special part in the evolution of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs), beginning as far back as the 1950s when conventional Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) came into being. A brief historical review of this evolutionary process is presented, followed by a selective survey of some of the intelligent tutoring systems in the mathematics domain as well as some of their shortcomings and the criticisms levelled against them. The work achieved so far towards the realisation of an intelligent tutoring system for a complex mathematical domain is presented. A major conclusion is that the ‘mal‐rule’ methodology for developing tutoring systems may lend itself to simple ‘primitive’ domains, but its credibility is seriously questioned when it is applied to more ‘complex’ domains. An alternative methodology is proposed to solve this problem, together with an illustration.