TEACHERS, COMPUTER TUTORS, AND TEACHING - THE ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT TUTOR AS AN AGENT FOR CLASSROOM CHANGE

This article documents, explores, and explains a paradox-that students who assert that a teacher provides better help than an artificially i ntelligent computer-based tutor nonetheless prefer using the tutor to learning in a more traditional manner and appear to learn more while d oing so. An intensive qualitative study of eight classrooms using the tutors as well as control and comparison classrooms suggests three fac tors that account for this seeming inconsistency. First, rather than r eplacing the teacher, the tutor provided an additional resource for st udents. Second, using the tutors allowed teachers to provide more indi vidualized help. Third, students using the tutors had more control ove r the kind and amount of help they received from the teacher, with hel ping interactions becoming more private and potentially less embarrass ing. None of these changes were envisioned by the tutor's developers, highlighting the importance of exploring the unintended effects of tec hnology on classroom functioning.