The proposed study will examine for the effects of the ITSM on students' math performance and attitudes toward math, school, and the computer. The ITSM will also be examined for its effects on teachers' instructional effectiveness. So that this proposed research can be placed within the context of the existing knowledge base, this section of the proposal presents a review of the pertinent literature.
Regarding the presented review, it is divided into three broad categories. These categories are: (1) Research on the effects of the ITSM on student math performance; (2) Research on the effects of the ITSM on teachers' instructional effectiveness; and (3) Research on the effects of the ITSM on students' attitudes toward math, school, and computers.
The review ends with the formulation of a series of conclusions about the effects of the ITSM based on the reviewed material. This section also presents conclusions related to possibilities and directions for the future use of the ITSM in the educational system.
Before examining research that explores for the effectiveness of intelligent tutoring systems on math learning, it is helpful to provide a brief description of such systems. In this regard, Oberem (1994) has provided a comprehensive discussion of an intelligent tutoring system known as ALBERT. Regarding the program, ALBERT is a problem-solving monitor and coach that has been used with high school and college level physics students for several years; it uses a natural language system to understand kinematics problems and can teach students to solve physics problems by engaging the student in a plain English dialogue.
The four programs described by Oberem (1994) clearly demonstrate the transportability of the ALBERT natural language systems across diverse subject areas, programming languages and hardware platforms. Each of the programs discussed by Oberem can be quickly summarized here:
(1) FREEBODY is a pro...