Stepping stones to success: A qualitative investigation of the effectiveness of adaptive stepped supporting tools for problem-solving in organic chemistry to design an intelligent tutoring system

Figures & data

Figure 1. Task set of a nucleophilic substitution reaction used in this study, with the predict-the-product tasks on the left and the case-comparison task on the right.

Figure 2. Steps taken in the development of adaptive support, using the example of understand conceptual knowledge. The further steps of the subdivision of the support format as depicted in Step 5 and their implementation as ASSTs are presented in the Appendix.

Table 1. Coding scheme for identifying the steps between the first occurrence of students’ difficulties and their resolution.

Main code	Description	Example
Difficulty	Participant  … says or writes something incorrect.  … does not mention or utilise information that is relevant for problem-solving.  … expresses uncertainty about their approach or statement.	When it comes to elimination, I understand that it initiates a halt in a reaction. For instance, in a radical chain reaction, elimination serves to terminate the radical chain reaction by bringing two radicals together.
Provision of the ASST	Interviewer  … provides an ASST to the participant.	Provision of Remember 1 E2
Processing of the ASST	Participant  … interacts with the provided ASST after receiving it.	If I understand correctly, this actually indicates that, whenever we have an elimination, we also have an addition. This can be observed here: Hydrogen is added while bromine is eliminated.
Resolution of difficulty	Participant  … corrects the previous approach or statement.  … adds information.  … confirms their approach or statement.	It’s dawning on me that I've been saying this wrong all along. It’s about the negative inductive effect, not the positive inductive effect. I hadn’t even noticed that.

Table 2. Numbers of difficulties, resolved difficulties, and required ASSTs for each cognitive process dimension and overall.

Cognitive process dimension	Number of difficulties	Total rate of resolved difficulties	Number of required ASSTs M (SD)	Range of required ASSTs
Remember	103	88%	1.81 (0.64)	1–4
Understand	15	100%	2.60 (1.67)	1–6
Apply	82	75%	2.34 (2.17)	1–11
Analyse	30	86%	2.68 (2.38)	1–10
Evaluate	139	88%	4.52 (5.08)	1–20
Overall	369	85%	3.06 (3.58)	1–20

Figure 3. Support pathways for each difficulty across cognitive process dimensions. Each cognitive process dimension is depicted in a different colour in separate graphics. The numbers and the thickness of the arrows indicate the frequency of each pathway. The support pathways progress from top to bottom, processing from the type of difficulty to the provided ASST, and concluding with the (non-)resolution.

Figure 4. Example for the impact of prior knowledge on the effectiveness of ASSTs. The three students encountered the same difficulty and initially received identical ASSTs, but, due to varying levels of prior knowledge, they processed the support differently, which resulted in varying subsequent pathways.

Figure 5. Example for the impact of the acceptance of the information provided by the ASSTs on the effectiveness of the ASSTs. The student refused to integrate the information from the first ASST due to personal dislike.

Figure 6. Nesting of difficulties between cognitive process dimensions. The numbers and the thickness of the arrows indicate the frequency of each nesting.

Figure 7. Example for the impact of students’ ability to process the ASSTs and students’ awareness of their own difficulties on the effectiveness of the ASSTs. The student, unaware that her explanation was incorrect, overlooked the information in the ASST that contradicted her understanding.

Figure 8. Example for the impact of the fit of the ASSTs provided on the effectiveness of the ASSTs. The student received a less suitable ASST because no appropriate ASST existed for the difficulty the student was experiencing.