Simulated student behaviors with intelligent tutoring systems: Applications for authoring and evaluating network-based tutors

This chapter reviews contemporary research on the use of simulated learners as a methodological approach employed to evaluate theoretical and computational frameworks in the context of intelligent tutoring systems. This modeling approach simulates human students as they learn under controlled conditions, enabling system designers and users to manipulate them and observe the effects. During the last few decades, the method has grown in popularity and led to several practical applications, including development of learning theories, formative evaluations of alternative instructional approaches, and software agents that serve instructional purposes. Drawing upon our own research on the topic, we apply this method in the context of nSimulator as a means to simulate behaviors observed in actual human learners and improve instructional features embedded in network-based tutors. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses for simulated learners as a methodology to test and develop better tutoring systems. Copyright © 2018 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.