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Dissertation Information for Judith Ahrens

NAME:
- Judith Ahrens
- (Alias) Judith Dorph Ahrens

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Information Systems

SCHOOL:
- Temple University (USA) (1989)

ADVISORS:
- Leonard J. Garrett

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Inspected

Title: Teaching a new methodology for designing relational databases: An experiment testing the effectiveness of an intelligent tutoring system on cognitive skill acquisition.

Abstract: "The purpose of this research was to investigate the effectiveness as an intelligent tutoring system for teaching the skills needed to use a new data-modelling methodology developed by the research.

The methodology synthesizes normalized relations directly from single- and multi-valued facts about entities. The methodology was translated into a tutorial presentation and a conceptual schema diagramming technique was developed.

The study was a CAI-based experiment with 120 undergraduate and 48 graduate students enrolled in Introduction to MIS courses. A pretest was given and a mixed-model experimental design was used. Students learned from either an intelligent or a non-intelligent tutor.

The experiment tested the proposition that the intelligent tutor would facilitate the acquisition of skills needed to perform data-modelling tasks. The research model was based on Anderson's cognitive skill acquisition theory (1982;1987) and the facilitators, (instructional techniques) were suggested by his research on intelligent tutoring systems. The intelligent tutor used the facilitators and the ideal- and buggy-student model-tracing methodology of tutoring; the non-intelligent tutor did not.

Specific hypotheses tested: comprehensive of data analysis concepts, terminology, and the conceptual schema; following procedures for converting the conceptual schema into relations; discriminating among design decision rules; applying the methodology to a data-modelling problem; and performance differences between graduate and undergraduate students.

The intelligent tutor was effective for teaching rule-based procedural skills to undergraduates. It was not effective for teaching conceptual or analytical material to undergraduates, and made no difference for graduates. Graduate performance was in all cases significantly different from undergraduate.

The conclusions were: (1) other cognitive theories and tutorial techniques should be explored for teaching conceptual and analytical material; (2) the significant performance differences between graduates and undergraduates casts doubt on the validity of using undergraduate students as surrogates for practitioners in information sciences research; (3) individual/group characteristics and problem domain characteristics must be used as independent variables in future research models of cognitive skill acquisition.

The contributions included: the new data-modelling methodology, the intelligent tutorial, and the new research model of cognitive skill acquisition."

MPACT Scores for Judith Ahrens

A = 0
C = 3
A+C = 3
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2010-10-02 19:47:44

Advisors and Advisees Graph

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Students under Judith Ahrens

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- Yvonne Lederer Antonucci - Drexel University (1992)
- Ruth Temple Buys - Drexel University (1992)
- Jill Carol Gerhardt-Powals - Drexel University (1993)