| The widespread availability of inexpensive microcomputers, and the instructional possibilities they offer, have led to their widespread use in educational research. Earlier research focused primarily on the use of computers to facilitate rote learning and drill and practice. More recently, following research on "expert" systems, effort has been put into developing more intelligent tutoring or coaching systems that could better model student progress and adapt instruction to student needs, in order to produce better, or more efficient, learning.;This dissertation attempted to explore another aspect of tutoring interactions that may influence learning--namely, the style or "personality" of the tutor--and sought to bring this feature to the attention of those who are developing computer-based tutoring systems. In this sense, the research also seeks to make use of the computer as a laboratory to investigate the effects of teacher characteristics on student learning--an issue that has long been of interest to educational researchers.;Two computer programs were written to teach addition concepts. These two programs gave instruction and comments through voice feedback. The programs exhibited the same instructional features; they differed only in the affective comments that were given to the students. Thus, while informational content was kept constant, socio-emotional content was varied. Tests on addition skills, student interviews, time-on-task, and teacher ratings were used to measure student motivation and student learning.;The results showed that children who were "prepared" to learn the material covered by the computer tutor were most influenced by variations in the "personality" of the computer tutor. When given a free choice, these children spent an average of 60% more free-choice time interacting with a computer tutor written to present a more demonstrative, warm personality than one written to merely present standard, efficient feedback. These children did not learn more, however, from the warm computer tutor. Children who were less well prepared showed neither a preference for, nor more learning from, either tutor. |
