Abstract
Components of a computer solution for fraction problems in arithmetic have an analog in a new approach to educational task analysis. The components may be called goal-setting or planning elements, in contrast to the goal-satisfying or behavioral steps emphasized in much contemporary task analysis. A hypothetical tutorial dialogue in which a student is asked to tell a tutor what step to perform next is presented as an example of the emphasis of the planning side of computation. Explicit identification of goal-setting elements of a task is illustrated by analysis of the task of converting a pair of fractions to a new pair with a common denominator. The decomposition thus produces is simulated with two computer programs: (1) a LISP program using a set of production rules consisting of conditions to be met and subsequent actions to be taken and (2) a PROLOG program stating goals and solving goals explicitly.
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This article was prepared under Contract N00123-77-O0087 from the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), a contract housed in the UCSB Computer System Laboratory and under Grant GRA-57954 from the Science Research Council to Alan Bundy and the Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh. Appreciation is expressed to John Wolfe, Navy contract monitor, for his facilitation of and suggestions about this work, to James G. Greeno, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, for consultations, and to Alan Bundy for his stimulation and hospitality during the period in which this article was completed. Lawrence Byrd of the Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh, made a major contribution to the PROLOG sections of this article; his aid is specially acknowledged here. John Bruno, Director of UCSB Computer Systems Laboratory, and James H. Block, Department of Education, UCSB, were helpful in their suggestions. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the policies, either implied or expressed, of the U.S. government or of anyone credited above with assistance.
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Cotton, J.W., Marshall, S.P., Varnhagen, S. et al. A computer-oriented task analysis method for mathematics instruction. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation 13, 131–140 (1981). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207922
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207922