- Purpose: The researchers sought to investigate the impact of students’ exploration strategies on learning, specifically focusing on the use of a probabilistic model to jointly represent student knowledge and strategies.
- Research Question: Are the exploration strategies students use as important in understanding their performance as their final test scores?  
- Hypothesis: The researchers hypothesized that if exploratory behaviors were relevant to learning, they would be able to detect exploration patterns associated with learning outcomes and integrate those patterns into student models. 

Macalester College

Käser, T., Hallinen, N. R., &amp; Schwartz, D. L. (2017). Modeling exploration strategies to predict student performance within a learning environment and beyond. Proceedings of the Seventh International Learning Analytics &amp; Knowledge Conference. doi:10.1145/3027385.3027422

Modeling Exploration Strategies to Predict Student
Performance within a Learning Environment and Beyond

Purpose, Research Question, and Hypothesis

- The participants included 127 8th-grade students
- They were asked to play a computer game which consisted of combinations of several different characters (assigned to the categories small, medium, or large) playing games of tug-of-war. 
- The game included a set of predetermined rules, which the participants were supposed to discover in Explore mode, where they could test the results of games between different characters by setting up test games. They then applied their knowledge in Challenge mode, where they would have to determine which side would win in described games, which got increasingly more complex. 
- The number of attempts in both Exploration and Challenge mode were recorded, along with the different ways the participants tested hypotheses in Explore mode. 
- After completing the questions in Challenge mode, the participants then took a post-test to assess their overall knowledge of the rules of the game.


Methods and Measurement

Main Conclusion: to accurately predict a student’s success, you need to examine their learning strategies in addition to their test performances. 
- Students who developed and tested strong hypotheses within the context of the game (meaning they only tested one rule at a time, and built on rules they had already established) showed better overall understanding of the game’s rules in the post-test
- Those students who performed worse on the post-test showed significantly fewer attempts in Explore mode, tested weaker hypotheses or tested the same rules multiple times without building on them, and tended to give up on testing hypotheses earlier in the game. 

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