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This study explores the transformative potential of Generative AI (GenAI) and ChatBots in educational interaction, communication, and the broader implications of human-GenAI collaboration. By examining the related literature through data mining and analytical methods, the paper identifies three main research themes: the revolutionary role of GenAI-powered ChatBots in educational interactions, their capability to enrich social learning, and their dual role as both support and assistance within educational settings. This research further highlights the impact of human-GenAI interaction in education from social, psychological, and cultural perspectives, focusing on social presence as a fundamental component of the teaching and learning process. It discusses the integration of GenAI and ChatBots into education and considers whether this marks the dawn of an algorithmic renaissance that elevates educational experiences or an apocalypse that threatens the very essence of human learning and interaction.

Predictive student models are increasingly used in learning environments due to their ability to enhance educational outcomes and support stakeholders in making informed decisions. However, predictive models can be biased and produce unfair outcomes, leading to potential discrimination against certain individuals and harmful long-term implications. This has prompted research on fairness metrics meant to capture and quantify such biases. Nonetheless, current metrics primarily focus on predictive performance comparisons between groups, without considering the behavior of the models or the severity of the biases in the outcomes. To address this gap, we proposed a novel metric in a previous work (Verger et al., 2023) named "Model Absolute Density Distance" (MADD), measuring algorithmic unfairness as the difference of the probability distributions of the model's outcomes. In this paper, we extended our previous work with two major additions. Firstly, we provided theoretical and practical considerations on a hyperparameter of MADD, named "bandwidth," useful for optimal measurement of fairness with this metric. Secondly, we demonstrated how MADD can be used not only to measure unfairness but also to mitigate it through postprocessing of the model's outcomes while preserving its accuracy. We experimented with our approach on the same task of predicting student success in online courses as our previous work, and obtained successful results. To facilitate replication and future usages of MADD in different contexts, we developed an open-source Python package called maddlib (https://pypi.org/project/maddlib/). Altogether, our work contributes to advancing the research on fair student models in education.

In this paper, we present an extended evaluation of a course recommender system designed to support students who struggle in the first semesters of their studies and are at risk of dropping out. The system, which was developed in earlier work using a student-centered design, is based on the explainable k-nearest neighbor algorithm and recommends a set of courses that have been passed by the majority of successful neighbors, that is, students who graduated from the study program. In terms of the number of recommended courses, we found a discrepancy between the number of courses that struggling students are recommended to take and the actual number of courses they take. This indicates that there may be an alternative path that these students could consider. However, the recommended courses align well with the courses taken by students who successfully graduated. This suggests that even students who are performing well could still benefit from the course recommender system designed for at-risk students. In the present work, we investigate a second type of success--a specific minimum number of courses passed--and compare the results with our first approach from previous work. With the second type, the information about success might be already available after one semester instead of after graduation which allows faster growth of the database and faster response to curricular changes. The evaluation of three different study programs in terms of dropout risk reduction and recommendation quality suggests that course recommendations based on students passing at least three courses in the following semester can be an alternative to guide students on a successful path.

The impact of text length on the estimation of lexical diversity has captured the attention of the scientific community for more than a century. Numerous indices have been proposed, and many studies have been conducted to evaluate them, but the problem remains. This methodological review provides a critical analysis not only of the most commonly used indices in language learning studies, but also of the length problem itself, as well as of the methodology for evaluating the proposed solutions. Analysis of three data sets of texts produced by English language learners revealed that indices that reduce all texts to the same length using a probabilistic or an algorithmic approach solve the length-dependency problem; however, all these indices failed to address the second problem, which is their sensitivity to the parameter that determines the length to which the texts are reduced. The paper concludes with recommendations for optimizing lexical diversity analysis.

The estimation of RxC ecological inference contingency tables from aggregate data is one of the most salient and challenging problems in the field of quantitative social sciences, with major solutions proposed from both the ecological regression and the mathematical programming frameworks. In recent decades, there has been a drive to find solutions stemming from the former, with the latter being less active. From the mathematical programming framework, this paper suggests a new direction for tackling this problem. For the first time in the literature, a procedure based on linear programming is proposed to attain estimates of local contingency tables. Based on this and the homogeneity hypothesis, we suggest two new ecological inference algorithms. These two new algorithms represent an important step forward in the ecological inference mathematical programming literature. In addition to generating estimates for local ecological inference contingency tables and amending the tendency to produce extreme transfer probability estimates previously observed in other mathematical programming procedures, these two new algorithms prove to be quite competitive and more accurate than the current linear programming baseline algorithm. Their accuracy is assessed using a unique dataset with almost 500 elections, where the real transfer matrices are known, and their sensitivity to assumptions and limitations are gauged through an extensive simulation study. The new algorithms place the linear programming approach once again in a prominent position in the ecological inference toolkit. Interested readers can use these new algorithms easily with the aid of the R package lphom.

The use of algorithms and automation of public services is not new, but in recent years there has been a step change in processing power and a decrease in the price of these technologies, which means we are seeing more widespread use. These advances are reframing our perception of what matters in ways that impact the ethical dimensions of day-to-day life. In turn, these changes challenge long-standing assumptions about public service ethics and how it is taught. In this multidisciplinary authored paper, we argue that public service leaders must be attentive to ethical questions that converge around adopting "data-driven" techniques, including algorithmic decision-making. Algorithmic and technology focused ethics question assumptions about the current deficits within public service ethics pedagogy in public service programs and university programs and the future direction of the discipline. To do so raises longstanding but neglected questions about the public services' role in the state and recovering what Rohr refers to as the 'ethics of the office.' This, we argue, will have implications for teaching public service ethics.

Conservative activism around the purported influence of Critical Race Theory (CRT) on K-12 education has swept the country in recent years. While others have documented the sources of these messages, how school districts have responded to these critiques has not yet been investigated. Drawing on research on how social media algorithms elevate polarizing information and activate emotions, we analyze public social media posts on school/district Facebook pages mentioning the phrase "critical race" to examine how educators address the claim of teaching CRT and how the local community responds. We use sentiment analysis to examine the emotions of these posts and how they are distributed across states. We also explore the sentiment of subsequent community reactions reflected in the comments of each post, including negative emotions such as anger and fear, and positive emotions such as trust. This study has implications for how school districts can help to stop cycles of fearful rhetoric and engage with stakeholders in ways that unite a school community around shared priorities.

The concept, development and assessment of computational thinking have increasingly become the focus of research in recent years. Most of this type of research focuses on older children or adults. Preschool age is a sensitive period when many skills develop intensively, so the development of computational thinking skills can already begin at this age. The increased interest in this field requires the development of appropriate assessments. Currently, there are only a limited number of computational thinking assessments for preschool children. Based on this shortcoming, an assessment tool, named AlgoPaint Unplugged Computational Thinking Assessment for Preschool, was created addressed for 4-7 years old children. It is a paper-pencil-based test, which examines the following computational thinking domains: algorithms and debugging. Regarding computational concepts, simple instructions, simple and nested loops, and conditionals are included in the test. For the preliminary testing, AlgoPaint test was applied by 11 preschool teachers with 56 preschool age children. The test was also evaluated by 6 experts in algorithmic thinking working at universities. Based on the feedback given by the teachers and the experts, and the results of the children, AlgoPaint Computational Thinking Test was revised and completed. The revised version of the test is included in the appendix of the paper.

Firstly, this paper analyzes the role of AI in the reading management of English language and literature, establishes the implicit knowledge base of neural network, designs the auxiliary reading system for learning English language and literature, and optimizes the English language and literature management model of AI. The experimental results show that its reading efficiency is increased by 0.48%, and the performance of the credibility model is improved by 0.53% compared with the original system, which greatly optimizes the running time of the system. To some extent, it helps users to manage their time in English language and literature reading, and greatly improves users' reading efficiency and quality. Based on this advantage of AI algorithm, this paper introduces that the algorithm optimizes the reading management model and the training process of neural grid, and constructs a model of English language and literature assisted reading system based on AI. The system can better meet the needs of users in English language and literature reading management.

In this paper, we continue describing the project and the experimentation of "Ricerca Operativa Applicazioni Reali" (ROAR; in English, Real Applications of Operations Research), a three-year project for higher secondary schools, introduced. ROAR is composed of three teaching units, addressed to Grades 10, 11, and 12, respectively, having the main aim to improve students' interest, motivation, and skills related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics disciplines by integrating mathematics and computer science through operations research. In a previous paper, we reported on the design and implementation of the first unit, started in Spring 2021 at the scientific high school IIS Antonietti in Iseo (Brescia, Italy), in a Grade-10 class. Here, we focus on the second unit, carried out in Winter/Spring 2022 with the same students, now in a Grade-11 class. In particular, we describe objectives, prerequisites, topics and methods, the organization of the lectures, digital technologies used, and a challenging final project. Moreover, we analyze the feedback from students and teachers involved in the experimentation.

The innovation capability largely determines the initiative for future development of a region. Higher school is the main position for training innovative talents. Accurate and comprehensive assessment of innovation cultivation capability is an important basis of higher schools for continuous improvement. Thus, this paper focuses on assessing innovative talent cultivation capability. First, by CIPP model (Context, Input, Process and Product Evaluation), an assessment indicator system is built, consisting of 89 indicators in 21 categories. Then, based on indicator characteristics, this paper uses public data statistics, database retrieving, student survey, teacher survey, support personnel and expert investigation, to collect indicator values. After this, by a powerful machine learning algorithm, gradient Boosting regression tree, a capability assessment model is established. And based on collected data, established model is compared with several regression models in innovative talent cultivation capability assessing. Results confirm the performance superiority of our solution.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are crucial for advancing research, yet they are time-consuming and resource-demanding. Although machine learning and natural language processing algorithms may reduce this time and these resources, their performance has not been tested in education and educational psychology, and there is a lack of clear information on when researchers should stop the reviewing process. In this study, we conducted a retrospective screening simulation using 27 systematic reviews in education and educational psychology. We evaluated the sensitivity, specificity, and estimated time savings of several learning algorithms and heuristic stopping criteria. The results showed, on average, a 58% (SD = 19%) reduction in the screening workload of irrelevant records when using learning algorithms for abstract screening and an estimated time savings of 1.66 days (SD = 1.80). The learning algorithm random forests with sentence bidirectional encoder representations from transformers outperformed other algorithms. This finding emphasizes the importance of incorporating semantic and contextual information during feature extraction and modeling in the screening process. Furthermore, we found that 95% of all relevant abstracts within a given dataset can be retrieved using heuristic stopping rules. Specifically, an approach that stops the screening process after classifying 20% of records and consecutively classifying 5% of irrelevant papers yielded the most significant gains in terms of specificity (M = 42%, SD = 28%). However, the performance of the heuristic stopping criteria depended on the learning algorithm used and the length and proportion of relevant papers in an abstract collection. Our study provides empirical evidence on the performance of machine learning screening algorithms for abstract screening in systematic reviews in education and educational psychology.

Purpose: This paper aims to center the experiences of three cohorts (n = 40) of Black high school students who participated in a critical race technology course that exposed anti-blackness as the organizing logic and default setting of digital and artificially intelligent technology. This paper centers the voices, experiences and technological innovations of the students, and in doing so, introduces a new type of digital literacy: critical race algorithmic literacy. Design/methodology/approach: Data for this study include student interviews (called "talk backs"), journal reflections and final technology presentations. Findings: Broadly, the data suggests that critical race algorithmic literacies prepare Black students to critically read the algorithmic word (e.g. data, code, machine learning models, etc.) so that they can not only resist and survive, but also "rebuild" and "reimagine" the algorithmic world. Originality/value: While critical race media literacy draws upon critical race theory in education - a theorization of race, and a critique of white supremacy and multiculturalism in schools - critical race algorithmic literacy is rooted in critical race technology theory, which is a theorization of blackness as a technology and a critique of algorithmic anti-blackness as the organizing logic of schools and AI systems.

This paper proposes an online learning platform learner DM method based on the improved fuzzy C clustering (FCM) algorithm, constructs a learner feature database, and combines clustering analysis and SPSS statistical methods to statistically summarize the big data of law, thus improving the deficiencies of static and absolute classification of students in the student model. In the experiment paper, the improved algorithm is implemented and the experimental data is analyzed. The results show that the learner behavior feature extraction model in this paper has fewer errors and higher recall rate. Compared with the traditional CF algorithm, the error rate is reduced by 19.64% and the recall rate is increased by 22.85%. This study provides better targeted teaching programs and case resources for legal case teaching and promotes the innovation of legal case teaching mode.

The application of computer technology has revolutionized and promoted the traditional mode of piano teaching. Nowadays, many companies and institutions have begun to apply computer technology to online piano teaching. This paper analyzes the difficulties faced by students in piano teaching and the development of piano assistant practice and summarizes the demands of parents, teachers, students, and principals for online piano teaching system. Based on this, this paper designs and implements an online piano teaching system without special hardware. This system improves the existing maximum logarithm MPa algorithm and improves the detection performance while keeping the complexity low. Combined with the special structure of parallel projection, a generalized automaton model of hybrid system is proposed, and five elements are used to describe the continuous and discrete behaviors in the hybrid subsystem. It not only keeps the advantage of low complexity of the original Max log MPa algorithm, but also obtains better detection performance.

Modern e-learning system is a representative service form in innovative service industry. This paper designs a personalized service domain system, optimizes various parameters and can be applied to different education quality evaluation, and proposes a decision tree recommendation algorithm. Information gain is carried out through many existing principles of improved decision tree algorithm, and the information gain of the algorithm determines the inheritance of information. The process of modern e-learning system is based on personalized teaching and humanized intelligent interaction. This paper theoretically analyzes the improvement performance of the existing e-learning system in teaching quality evaluation and shows a good classification effect. This model provides reference materials for the expansion of education and teaching and provides a feasible practical model for personalized teaching in online schools. The authors provide good educational conditions and environment for students and cultivate all-around talents for the society.

As the cradle of cultivating talents, universities are facing great opportunities and challenges in their education. Among them, IPE (ideological and political education), as an important foundation for the future growth of university students, is of great significance. This paper discusses the relationship between IPE and psychological fitness education in university teaching. This paper expounds the necessity and feasibility of playing the role of psychological fitness education in IPECU (ideological and political education in colleges and universities). Based on this, this paper gives the strategy of infiltrating psychological fitness education into IPE. This paper combines NN (neural network) method to construct an assessment model of IPE quality. In this paper, MATLAB is used for simulation and comparative analysis. The final experiment shows that the RMSE of this algorithm is 0.512, MAE is 1.089, and the accuracy of the algorithm is 0.958.

Simulation is a powerful approach that plays a significant role in science and technology. Computational models that simulate learner interactions and data hold great promise for educational technology as well. Amongst others, simulated learners can be used for teacher training, for generating and evaluating hypotheses on human learning, for developing adaptive learning algorithms, for building virtual worlds in which students can practice collaboration skills with simulated pals, and for testing learning environments. This paper provides the first systematic literature review on simulated learners in the broad area of artificial intelligence in education and related fields, focusing on the decade 2010-19. We analyze the trends regarding the use of simulated learners in educational technology within this decade, the purposes for which simulated learners are being used, and how the validity of the simulated learners is assessed. We find that simulated learner models tend to represent only narrow aspects of student learning. And, surprisingly, we also find that almost half of the studies using simulated learners do not provide "any" evidence that their modeling addresses the most fundamental question in simulation design -- is the model valid? This poses a threat to the reliability of results that are based on these models. Based on our findings, we propose that future research should focus on developing more complete simulated learner models. To validate these models, we suggest a standard and universal criterion, which is based on the lasting idea of Turing's Test. We discuss the properties of this test and its potential to move the field of simulated learners forward.

Interpreting a seemingly simple function word like "or," "behind," or "more" can require logical, numerical, and relational reasoning. How are such words learned by children? Prior acquisition theories have often relied on positing a foundation of innate knowledge. Yet recent neural-network-based visual question answering models apparently can learn to use function words as part of answering questions about complex visual scenes. In this paper, we study what these models learn about function words, in the hope of better understanding how the meanings of these words can be learned by both models and children. We show that recurrent models trained on visually grounded language learn gradient semantics for function words requiring spatial and numerical reasoning. Furthermore, we find that these models can learn the meanings of logical connectives and and or without any prior knowledge of logical reasoning as well as early evidence that they are sensitive to alternative expressions when interpreting language. Finally, we show that word learning difficulty is dependent on the frequency of models' input. Our findings offer proof-of-concept evidence that it is possible to learn the nuanced interpretations of function words in a visually grounded context by using non-symbolic general statistical learning algorithms, without any prior knowledge of linguistic meaning.

Literature screening is the process of identifying all relevant records from a pool of candidate paper records in systematic review, meta-analysis, and other research synthesis tasks. This process is time consuming, expensive, and prone to human error. Screening prioritization methods attempt to help reviewers identify most relevant records while only screening a proportion of candidate records with high priority. In previous studies, screening prioritization is often referred to as automatic literature screening or automatic literature identification. Numerous screening prioritization methods have been proposed in recent years. However, there is a lack of screening prioritization methods with reliable performance. Our objective is to develop a screening prioritization algorithm with reliable performance for practical use, for example, an algorithm that guarantees an 80% chance of identifying at least 80% of the relevant records. Based on a target-based method proposed in Cormack and Grossman, we propose a screening prioritization algorithm using sampling with replacement. The algorithm is a wrapper algorithm that can work with any current screening prioritization algorithm to guarantee the performance. We prove, with mathematics and probability theory, that the algorithm guarantees the performance. We also run numeric experiments to test the performance of our algorithm when applied in practice. The numeric experiment results show this algorithm achieve reliable performance under different circumstances. The proposed screening prioritization algorithm can be reliably used in real world research synthesis tasks.

Technology Enabled Learning (TEL) has a major impact on the learning adaptability of the learners. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a drastic change in the learning methodology. The adaptability of learners from the various domains, levels and age has been a significant component of research in context to education. In this paper, the authors have proposed a machine learning and explainable AI based solution to identify critical learning parameters for students' adaptability level in online education. In this research the authors have employed various explainable AI (XAI) algorithms namely Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME), SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), FEature iMportance based eXplanable AI algorithm (FAMeX) for identifying the critical learning parameters to decide the adaptability level of a student. To test the efficacy of the solution, a dataset of students of several education levels of Bangladesh, collected from both online and offline surveys has been used. The results revealed are quite interesting, and counter intuitive.

Purpose: Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, such as ChatGPT and GPT-4, developed by OpenAI, have the potential to revolutionize education. This study explores the potential benefits and challenges of using ChatGPT in education (or "educative AI"). Design/Approach/Methods: This paper proposes a theoretical framework called "IDEE" for educative AI such as using ChatGPT and other generative AI in education, which includes identifying the desired outcomes, determining the appropriate level of automation, ensuring ethical considerations, and evaluating effectiveness. Findings: The benefits of using ChatGPT in education or more generally, educative AI, include a more personalized and efficient learning experience for students as well as easier and faster feedback for teachers. However, challenges such as the untested effectiveness of the technology, limitations in the quality of data, and ethical and safety concerns must also be considered. Originality/Value: This study explored the opportunities and challenges of using ChatGPT in education within the proposed theoretical framework.

This research is part of the Artificial Intelligence Virtual Trainer (AI-VT) project which aims to create a system that can identify the user's skills from a text by means of machine learning. AI-VT is a case-based reasoning learning support system can generate customized exercise lists that are specially adapted to user needs. To attain this outcome, the relevance of the first proposed exercise must be optimized to assist the system in creating personalized user profiles. To solve this problem, this project was designed to include a preliminary testing phase. As a generic tool, AI-VT was designed to be adapted to any field of learning. The most recent application of AI-VT was in the field of computer science specifically in the context of the fundamentals of algorithmic learning. AI-VT can and will also be useful in other disciplines. Developed in Python with the Keras API and the Tensorflow framework, this artificial intelligence-based tool encompasses a supervised learning environment, multi-label text classification techniques and deep neural networks. This paper presents and compares the performance levels of the different models tested on two different data sets in the context of computer programming and algorithms.

Social media have established a new way of communicating and understanding social relationships. At the same time, there are downsides, especially, their use of algorithms that have been built and developed under their umbrella and their potential to alter public opinion. This paper tries to analyse the YouTube recommendation system from the perspectives of reverse engineering and semantic mining. The first result is that, contrary to expectations, the issues do not tend to be extreme from the point of view of polarisation in all cases. Next, and through the study of the selected themes, the results do not offer a clear answer to the proposed hypotheses, since, as has been shown in similar works, the factors that shape the recommendation system are very diverse. In fact, results show that polarising content does not behave in the same way for all the topics analysed, which may indicate the existence of moderators --or corporate actions-- that alter the relationship between the variables. Another contribution is the confirmation that we are dealing with non-linear, but potentially systematic, processes. Nevertheless, the present work opens the door to further academic research on the topic to clarify the unknowns about the role of these algorithms in our societies.

This paper leverages cluster analysis to provide insight into how traditionally underrepresented learners engage with entry-level massive open online courses (MOOCs) intended to lower the barrier to university enrolment, produced by a major research university in the United States. From an initial sample of 260,239 learners, we cluster analyze a subset of data from 29,083 participants who submitted an assignment in one of nine entry-level MOOC courses. Manhattan distance and Gower distance measures are computed based on engagement, achievement, and demographic data. To our knowledge, this marks one of the first such uses of Gower distance to cluster mixed variable data to explore fairness and equity in the MOOC literature. The clusters are derived from CLARA and PAM algorithms, enriched by demographic data, with a particular focus on education level, as well as approximated socioeconomic status (SES) for a smaller subset of learners. Results indicate that learners without a college degree are more likely to be high-performing compared to college-educated learners. Learners from lower SES backgrounds are just as likely to be successful as learners from middle and higher SES backgrounds. While MOOCs have struggled to improve access to learning, more fair and equitable outcomes for traditionally underrepresented learners are possible.